On the Ocean Blue
by NikoArtagnan
Summary: She was always just an ordinary girl…Until the day she wasn't. (OC-Insert)
1. Excerpts from the Journal of

**On the Ocean Blue**

She was always just an ordinary girl…Until the day she wasn't. (OC-Insert)

* * *

**Author's Notes:** …What the fuck am I doing? Oh, who even knows…This is so goddamned self-indulgent, *sighs*

Block _italics_ denotes journal entries. The first chapter consists of excerpts of journal entries before and after the protagonist enters the One Piece world. Not all of them, just enough to show how she's doing and whatnot.

I made up Madison, and Senna, Ohio. If they are real places, my apologies. I also made up a number of islands, to suit my purposes.

**Warnings:** OC, lots of foul language, bisexuality, blood, mentions of torture, rape, minor character death

* * *

**Chapter One:**

Excerpts from the Journal of...

* * *

**DATE: **_January 12__th__, 2012_

**MY LOCATION: **_Lewis Family Home_

**PLACE: **_Madison, Ohio_

_My therapist tells me I should write in a journal. I try to tell her that the thoughts in my mind are so chaotic that I can't order them down properly and that they often degenerate into a general mess of incoherent-ness, but she just smiles patronizingly at me. _

_Then she says in her 'I'm so smug and superior to you, plebian' voice that I have to follow the court's orders, and the judge went nice on me before, but in my next hearing it could very well go differently if I didn't have her approval._

_Condescending bitch._

_Mom tells me I should use it when I feel I should, and leave it at that. Mom fought the hardest to get me therapy, after what happened. She fought the hardest to get me some sort of justice, after everything and all. She's the one who helped me start my revenge, though I don't think she ever thought it would go this far._

_Anyway…maybe I should introduce myself before I get too much into it. Mikhail told me that's what I should do when I start a new journal when I told him about it at the hospital._

_Well then…I'm Kelly Lewis. I'm eighteen years old and I graduated from Central Way High School four months ago. I'm about 5"10 in a pair of sneakers, and I weigh about 260. I use to weigh 290. Yay for weight loss. And dance lessons. I'm pretty good now. _

_I have black hair that I keep short around my head, because it's a pain in the ass to deal with it long and I have the attention span of a water flea. My skin is pale and my complexion clear – much to the envy of my high school peers, because I never dealt with acne or pimples. It still makes me laugh._

_I have dark green eyes that quite a few people say are my only attractive feature. Those guys can all go fuck themselves, IMHO. I wear glasses, but they make me look nice, or so I'm told. I usually only need them for reading, which is even nicer._

_I like comfortable clothes. Who cares if sometimes people mistake me for a guy in them? I don't. I like comfort, not something supposedly 'chic' that will leave my feet and body aching for hours after. Fashion is like God's way of saying "I really hate women"._

_…__Mom tells me I could have a promising career in the art of 'Being a Grouchy Old Man'. Dad laughs like a hyena whenever she does, and so does Mik._

_They may have a point._

_~KL_

* * *

**DATE: **_October 9__th__, 2012_

**MY LOCATION: **_Outside Alamo General Hospital_

**PLACE: **_Senna, Ohio_

_They tried to tell me to apologize to him. Forced me to come to this godforsaken place so that little fuck could bask in the fact that I had to apologize to the douche who raped my best friend, beat me nearly unconscious, and posted pictures of her rape everywhere._

_He was conscious when I came in, though his parents were sure to tell me beforehand that he would never walk again. That the colleges were refusing to let him in, even with all of their money. That people mocked and scorned and hated him. That he would never _ever _**play football ever again.**_

_LE GASP! My eyes filled with tears and I fell before his bed, weeping hysterically. "Oh, Daniel, I'm so sorry for having caused you this hurt! Please, let me make it up to you, whatever I can do-"_

_Actually, no._

_I didn't say anything to him, as my lawyer and my mom followed me into the room, his parents standing on either side of his bed. I looked at him, bandaged up and swollen, watching me with eyes that had once seemed so beautiful, and I smiled. I really smiled at him. It felt so easy, to be honest._

_I could feel a sense of relief from Mr. and Mrs. Sampson, Daniel's parents, and from my lawyer. My mom was smart, though. She knew I wasn't smiling for the reasons the other adults thought._

_I looked at Daniel, at the boy who'd beaten me senseless. The boy who would have raped me if he hadn't been forced to leave because his parents were expecting him home. The boy who left me for dead in a park so I had to crawl a painstaking three miles to a road to get help. The boy who'd gone on to rape my best friend because no one believed that a good ole 'American Boy' would ever do such a crime and ignored me. The boy who'd tried to rape another girl, if I hadn't intervened and beaten him senseless. The boy who would have gotten off Scott-free, if I hadn't worked my ass off to make sure everyone knew just what he had done._

_I looked at Daniel, and began to speak, still smiling._

_"__Eat shit and die, you fucking rapist. I hope you get run over by a fucking truck, and God pimp-slaps you straight to hell, you little piece of shit. You don't deserve anything ever good in your life, and I wish, oh _God_, how I wish I'd killed you. But death is too good for the likes of you. Enjoy life as a cripple, _bitch_."_

_I smiled at my lawyer and my mom, and said as sweetly as I could, in the ensuing shocked silence, "I think I'm done here."_

_It was worth it. _

_Dad gave me a hundred bucks when we got home. XD_

_~KL_

* * *

**DATE: **_May 31__st__, 2013_

**MY LOCATION: **_Home_

**PLACE: **_Madison, Ohio_

_I'm on house arrest, officially. After I'm done with half a year of house arrest, I'll have to do thirty days of community service. Mom went to lay down went we got home, tired beyond belief. Dad just smiled approvingly when I told him about what had happened at the court and how I stayed calm. _

_It's a relief to us all, after all the press – both good and bad – we've been getting. Mom made a couple a press conferences, to explain why I'd done it. I wrote a letter and everything. Tried not to be too bitter. That was hard._

_Anyway, the judge was a nice guy. He likes me and went very easy on me, my lawyer said with a relieved smile. I know he didn't like Daniel, after the crippled bitch caused an uproar at the hearing, yelling awful obscenities at Morgan and me and at Erin, the girl I saved._

_I'd kept my temper. And it paid off big time. Daniel Sampson's going to jail – he'll be kept in solitary for a while. It's only half a year, but the judge forced the Sampsons to pay half a mil to Morgan and myself both, and he'll have to go through two years of mandatory community service, then another three years of mandatory anger management classes._

_Abigail Torres – Erin's mother – came up to us as we left the courthouse, and hugged me tight, while the cameras of the reporters flashed and nearly blinded me._

_"__Thank you for saving my daughter. Thank you so much."_

_That beat any other reward hands down. I couldn't keep that fuck from touching Morgan, but I saved her daughter. At least I did that much._

_Mikhail called today._

_He wanted my opinion about where he should take Morgan out to dinner. He told me, if Morgan consented to dating him – or, as he put it "being courted' – in a few months, we should consider double dating. I told him I wasn't dating anyone nor would anyone want to date the girl who'd put the 'All-American High School Football Star' in the hospital._

_He laughed at me and then asked quite innocently if I was taking Erin out for her birthday._

_I am, but I don't see the point. Erin's a good friend, and while she's got a healthy case of Hero-Worship going on for me, we're slowly becoming great friends. There's nothing going on there._

_…__I think._

_~KL_

* * *

**DATE: **_December 31__st__, 2013_

**MY LOCATION: **_Home_

**PLACE: **_Madison, Ohio_

_Jesus Christ, what a year this has been. I'm so glad it's over._

_Morgan's doing so much better. She laughs, nowadays. Her mom told me that she'll more than likely be able to have children in the future, and I'm so glad. Morgan wants kids, I know that._

_She spends a lot of time she's not with me with Mikhail. He treats her right, like a princess, just like she deserves. He doesn't push for anything she doesn't want to do. And he doesn't blame her._

_Erin and I spent hours online, Skyping. She comes over a lot. She also kissed me. On the cheek. But there was something soft and warm in her eyes that made me feel all mooshy-gooshy inside. I asked her to give me some time to think about and she smiled and nodded. I never thought about my sexual orientation before. Jesus Christ. I mean, I like guys, I know that. Guys arouse me. _

_I know I like women, I mean, there was Lien after all..._

_…But that didn't exactly turn out well, now did it.__..._

_Anyway, Mom and Dad went to a fancy restaurant in Cincinnati to celebrate New Year's. I convinced them I'd be fine. _

_Tomorrow I'm going to Morgan's for a sleepover. One Piece marathon, for the win!_

_I've got my bag all_

* * *

**DATE:**

**MY LOCATION:**

**PLACE: **

_OH GOD, OH GOD, OH MY FUCKING GOD WHAT THE HELL WHERE THE HELL AM I?!_

* * *

**DATE:** _I DON'T KNOW_

**MY LOCATION:** _I DON'T KNOW_

**PLACE:** _SOME ISLAND? JESUS I DON'T KNOW!_

_It's like I've wandered straight into a nightmare. I finally managed to find a place to hide from the maniacs chasing me. I don't know how long I have, but holy shit, I've got to get off this godforsaken island._

_I'll make this quick, then. The roof was literally ripped off my house, and a fucking tornado reached in and scooped me out. I managed to grab my bag and my journal before I went flying into it. I was tossed and turned for hours, before I landed here. I managed to piss off some local crazies who fucking DRINK BLOOD, and I've been on the run ever since._

_I also seem to have shrunk a considerable amount. Did I fucking de-age or something? Jesus, I haven't been in this good of a shape since I was nine. Oh God, am I nine? WTF?!_

_Oh, and another thing…WHERE THE FUCK AM I?!_

_Shit, they're coming, I'll write later if I ca_

* * *

**DATE: **_It's winter, I think_

**LOCATION: **_Sadsen Isle_

**PLACE: **_North Blue… yeah, you read that right._

_How long have I been running? Gods, I don't know._

_I finally managed to get some time to sit down and think and write in my journal without worrying about whether or not I'll be killed, but I'm not sure how long it'll last. Those crazies from the first island I landed on have been hunting me like dogs. I think I finally managed to throw them._

_I wasn't always so lucky. They managed to grab me twice. Brought me to their castle._

_I don't want to talk about what happened there. It wasn't fun. I still wake up from the nightmares, when I can manage to get some sleep._

_I also have magic, apparently. Nearly gave me a heart attack when I was escaping from those blood-sucking freaks of nature's Castle of Horrors and I fried at least six of them with a blast of fucking lightning. Hurt like hell afterwards._

_I've been experimenting, and it seems my powers – so weird to be saying that – are based around the four elements: air, water, fire, and earth. I'm doing pretty well with water, but the others are giving me considerable trouble. Aaagh, I need a chance to sit down and really see what I'm capable of. Fuck that, I need a real teacher. Are there teachers who teach magic here?_

_…__Jesus Christ, what am I saying? It's the __**world of One Piece**__, I'd be surprised if they didn't._

_I have magic. __**I have magic and I'm in the world of One Piece.**__ It's like all my childhood and teenaged dreams have come true at once, but I sort of wish it hadn't required my nearly being murdered over twenty times for it to happen._

_I'm in the world of One Piece. It sucks so far (blood-sucking demons and unspeakable torture, FTW…not), but I can't help the excitement I feel. Any fan would._

_But most of the excitement is buried under guilt, terror, and a bone-deep sort of exhaustion that's been with me for weeks. But I can't let it take me down. I have to keep moving, keep fighting, and keep living._

_I can't think about my family or my friends. If I did, I'd collapse. The homesickness takes more out of me than even the fatigue._

_But if I'm right about my magic, my ticket home lies there. So all I have to do is survive and learn more about my magic, develop it further and further until it is strong enough to get me home. In that tornado that brought me here, I felt something just like my magic._

_As I write these words, I know I could make my own tornadoes…in time. I just have to survive that long._

_I sit in the shade of a building, in a city that belches smoke and whose residents won't notice another poor beggar sitting in the shadows. I feel like I can't breathe, but that's probably because of all the smoke. This place certainly isn't doing my asthma any good._

_But I'm vain enough to appreciate what the past year on the run and the subsequent fighting for my life has done for my figure. Not only am I a lot skinnier, but I'm muscled as all get out. It's pretty nice._

_And few people are stupid enough to bother a girl who looks like she could knock them out with one hand. Not that most anyone's going to be bothering me. I've been picking up fighting skills left and right. I've been taking lessons with anyone and everyone who'll have me, though I'm anxious to find a Rokushiki scroll. I master that shit, and no one will fuck with me. CP9, bitches._

_There's a black cat sleeping on my lap, purring silently and soothingly, the way cats have about them when they deign to show affection to someone. He's been my only friend for the past year, when I rescued him from getting thrown into a cooking pot and got shot in reward. I decided to call him Gin-Aido, for his silver eyes. Gin for short._

_He speaks. Only in short bursts, but he speaks. He tells me in a couple of months, when I'm stronger, he'll be able to talk more. And he'll be able to teach me more about my magic! He's a wee bit sarcastic, but he has a dead-pan sense of humor that very nearly matches mine. It's absolutely hilarious. And he's a great guide. He was the familiar of a master sorcerer, who threw him away, and he wanted to stay with me._

_I've no idea __**why**__ he wants to be with me, but it's nice having a friend._

_~KL_

* * *

**DATE:** _May, I think_

**MY LOCATION:** _A Place called Toratega_

**PLACE: **_South Blue_

_I've been on the run for two years._

_Gin's been teaching me about who I am, which is something called a Magus. Apparently, I have the blood of the Magi in my veins (I wanted to make a __Labyrinth of Magic__ joke, but it didn't seem the time), and I have it pretty strongly, too. Gin says I must have it from both sides of my family in equally strong doses, and that it probably comes from my parents. Gin's also been pretty tight-lipped about where he thinks the bulk of my powers comes from beyond that, because he tells me I shouldn't have this many Daemons after me. Not as an untrained Magus._

_I'll have to ask Mom when I get home, because I'm pretty sure I don't have any super-powered folks in my lineage. And I'm fairly certain my parents aren't either. I mean, my mom's a divorce lawyer and my dad's a businessman/chef. I'm pretty sure they can't do magic._

_Apparently, those demons have been hunting me because the magic in my blood is so strong it could give them eternal life or some shit. _

_Oh look, a __Black Bird__ reference. It's pretty fucking horrifying when it's actually true. Christ Almighty would those fucks try and rape me? Dear God._

_I've been running and trying to learn and trying real hard not to die, leapfrogging all over the islands with my magic, though I can't enter the Grand Line. _

_I haven't had two seconds to think straight. Those things – Daemons, they call themselves, the fucking "nobility of the Makai" – have been hunting me for all this time. And they're not the only ones hunting me. I've been pretty low-profile most of the time, but it seems like when humans discover who I am – or better yet, what my blood does – they go a little crazy, trying to capture me to drain my blood. Apparently my blood can do a great deal of things – heal the badly injured, bring a field of crops to flourishing life for years, and create beautifully enchanting jewels when frozen._

_It's pretty fucking horrifying, because along with those admittedly cool things (which humans are NEVER content with, ungrateful bastards) I found something terrifying out on one of the last islands I was on, which was that, as the crazy old lady who kidnapped me said, "the issue of your body will possess the powers of the Magi, and give strength and honor to your husband's family."_

_Which means all the crazy humans want to rape me and force me to bear their or their son's children._

_On that island, it was the first time I ever killed a human. I killed multiple humans. I had to do it. I was protecting myself. I had to protect myself. I couldn't just take their memories like I'd always done. That wouldn't have worked._

_Humanity is ugly, I realized. You can't trust humans. Not with their greed and avarice. They'd all bleed me dry to further their own gains. But then again, this is the world with the horrible Tenryubito, wide-spread slavery, the corrupt World Government, and pirates who rule the seas. _

_Man, I knew humanity was horrible before, why is this so surprising to me now?_

_…__Maybe it's because I was never really exposed to it, beyond what happened to me and my friends by that raping Neanderthal. I mean, I saw the burnings, the bigotry, the hate, the wars, and the desolation on the TV, but I was never really exposed to it like I have been here. I've never lived in poverty before. Here, poverty was inevitable, because I had no money, no knowledge of how the money system even worked, despite my near-religious devotion to the series. It was only my knowledge of the series that kept me from getting too freaked out by the weird, physics-defying aspects of this place._

_Anyway, I finally managed to find some solace on an island protected by enormous tigers. I thought I was going to die on my little sail boat, chased by those godforsaken monsters who've been hunting me for the past year, but I managed to rustle up a Jump (a teleport, essentially) to take me and Gin to a safe place, which apparently was this island._

_I thought the tigers – and their many brethren who wander this island – would have eaten me, but they greeted me like I was an old and dear friend of theirs._

_This'll be a good place to rest. Gin says the tigers will protect me._

_The tigers – at least, the two Guardian ones, they are called Arashi and Tega – can speak. They tell me that they will protect me, but I can stay here for only three years before the demons will find me. Three years to learn from the immense libraries deep within the mansions the tigers took me to in the middle of the island._

_I can do it, though. Mom says I have the determination of the Devil when I really put my mind to something._

_I will get home._

_(I want to see my family again)_

_I can do this._

_~KL_

* * *

**DATE: **_Arashi says it's winter, though it still feels just as hot and muggy as it ever was._

**LOCATION:** _Toratega Island Mansion, my study_

**PLACE: **_South Blue_

_It's winter, but it still feels hot and humid here. I think my magic has burned away all of my asthma, because it's not bothering me as much. I don't need my glasses for anything but reading, and even that's slowly disappearing. A year has passed._

_And I've been training._

_My repertoire of spells has grown. There are hundreds of things I can now do with the magic boiling in my veins. My control over water is growing day by day, and so is my control over earth, but fire, air, and their respective spells are still beyond me._

_Gin is a fucking slave driver. That little shit apparently knows fucking Rokushiki, and has been, in his words, "whipping my lazy ass into shape", before he'll teach me. He gets the tigers to chase me around every goddamned morning, and then he has me do weight lifting until I pass out. Then it's another race around the island before dinner. I train my magic every moment in between._

_I don't want to think about my family. God, do they think I'm dead_

_Gin says he's not the have-all, know-all on magic. Once I gain a basic knowledge of all four elements and their spells, I'll have surpassed his knowledge. I know he's worried about me getting rid of him like his last (shitty) master did, but Gin's my friend. I won't leave him._

_And besides, he still needs to teach me Rokushiki._

_…__I haven't really thought about the strangeness of this all. I mean, Good God, I'm on an island inhabited by __**talking**__ tigers, practicing my __**magic**__, aided by my __**talking black cat**__, who's going to teach me __**Rokushiki**__, in the middle of an ocean that I had thought was __**FICTIONAL**__._

_But the thing is…It doesn't seem strange. At all._

_Practicing my magic, learning how to fight, talking with animals – it feels as natural as breathing. I like it. I really like it. I'm not so angry anymore. My temper doesn't randomly explode. I'm not so bitter as I was. I don't feel like I'm holding the world on my shoulders in terms of what I feel, if that makes any sense. This place feels as much like home as my real home ever did. _

_I know most of the tigers on the island by name now, and they welcome me with open arms, when they aren't chasing me around the island. I don't have to worry about if I say something wrong or do something wrong they'll get offended or never speak to me again or things will get uncomfortable._

_Sure, I've had a few breakdowns. But that was mostly about…_

_..._

_Damn it, stop tearing up. I'm fucking stronger than this._

_I'll get home to them. I just have to learn how. My magic holds the key to getting home, though I haven't read anything in the thousands of books I managed to pour over. But there are still plenty of books left._

_And this is the world of One Piece._

_I'll find a way to get home. And I'll get stronger in the process._

_..._

_…__I feel like the theme for 'Team America' should be playing now. LOLOLOL_

_Ah well, time for bed._

_~KL_

* * *

**DATE: **_Spring! God, it feels nice. Wait…why is it that winter is still hot but spring isn't? The hell?_

**MY LOCATION: **_Toratega, like usual_

**PLACE: **_The Grand Ole Mangrove Tree I found._

_Lunchtime, woot._

_Gin insisted I eat outside, as the day was so good. Arashi took me to this enormous mangrove on the outskirts of the island, and I ate lunch there with the tigers from the local tribe milling underneath. I know they're allies of mine, but they're still wild animals. Not going to risk climbing down there and hanging out._

_I'm doing so much better in my studies. My repertoire is increasing day by day._

_I haven't blown myself up in ages! XD_

_I'm slowly starting to master water. Air's coming along fine too. Minor control of earth. I still suck at fire. Fuck._

_Gin tells me I expect too much out of myself. I tell him I want to fry those fucking demons into next week if they ever come near me. _

_Fire would be the perfect weapon against those maniacs. But since that bolt of lightning I conjured up early on, fire's been extremely difficult and near impossible for me to use._

_I don't have much longer. Gin usually gives me a half hour after lunch before he begins bitching again._

_But I can feel the difference in my body. I'm goddamn strong, now._

_THOUGH THAT STUPID FUCK STILL HASN'T TAUGHT ME ANY ROKUSHIKI ARRRRRRGH._

_~KL_

* * *

**DATE:** _Man, I don't know. I think it's winter? Who the fuck knows anymore._

**MY LOCATION: **_Toratega_

**PLACE: **_The Mansion_

_The tigers tell me I leave tomorrow. The demons know I'm here. I must pack and be ready to leave at noon. Gin sits on my lap, calming my trembling. The fear I thought I'd left behind when I came to this island and managed to leave behind those monsters has returned in force._

_I know I'm strong. I know I can fight like mad. I'm starting to learn Rokushiki – fucking __**finally**__ – and I mastered water and air and their respective spells. Earth and fire – being so fundamentally different to the elements I know - will take me some time, though._

_But I'm scared. There, I said it._

_Jesus Christ, I haven't been this scared since I was at that park, fighting to stay alive after that little fuck beat me almost to death._

_I don't want to die._

_Journal, this may be the last time I write in you for a while. I've been somewhat diligent about writing here on Toratega, but something tells me that will have to stop until I find a place to hide. Tega has asked me to take her runt daughter with me, and I've agreed. A beautiful little tiger cub, orange and white and black. Tega let me name her. Shere Khan. She'll be fucking King of the Tigers. I don't care if she's a girl. Gin says she will be a good familiar for me._

_Anyway, it's back to the hunt, Kelly._

_But this time, the hunted can fight __**back**__._

_~KL_

* * *

**DATE:** _Mina told me it's March 29__th__._

**MY LOCATION: **_Aratuck Island, Mina's Ramen Shop_

**PLACE:** _East Blue_

_I managed to find an island where the monsters couldn't find me. The people welcomed me with open arms, cheering on "The Most Exalted Magus". Fucking strange, but hey, I'd rather have adoration than fangs at my neck._

_They gave me a house on top of the hill, away from the village proper. Apparently it once belonged to a Magus! I couldn't fucking believe my luck._

_They'd fully stocked it once they'd learned I wanted to stay. There was a feast beforehand, a grand one, then a gorgeous lady called Mina took me up there. I nearly passed out with exhaustion._

_The next day, I met with the Elders, who granted my request to stay a while on the island. They only requested that I give a drop of blood to the soil once a month. Hell, I can do that easily._

_Mina's smiling at me again. Jesus, she's beautiful. Long, luscious blonde hair that falls in her face, a warm, smoky voice, a killer bod, and one hell of a brain between her ears. She's been catching me up to date on everything going on in the world proper. She found out I loved to draw and has been encouraging me to do more. Bought me drawing stuff and everything._

_I've never had anyone look at me the way she does...besides Lien. I'd forgotten how addicting it was, being wanted. Being desired. Few people ever saw me like that back home._

_But then again, I'm toned and fucking hot now, so perhaps it's not too surprising._

_…__Actually, yes it is. Jesus, have you __**seen**__ this woman?_

_Fuck it, I don't care if she just feels pity for the new girl or awe at my being a Magus. If she invites me out on a date or to her bed, I'm going to accept._

_Jesus Christ, I feel like my face is on fire. Is that what they mean by 'bedroom eyes'?_

_Hoo boy._

_…__Gin's laughing at me again._

_~KL_

* * *

**DATE: **_May 1__st__, still don't know the year._

**MY LOCATION: **_Aratuck Island, my house_

**PLACE: **_East Blue_

_It's my birthday. I've outgrown my original age, I can tell. I'm pretty sure I'm 22, now._

_Mina's in my bed, dead to the world. I look back at her as I write this, and I can't stop smiling. Good God, she's beautiful._

_We've been together for a year-ish. We don't get any grief from the people of this island. It feels nice. I mean, we get some grumbles and stuff, but nothing like the vitriolic hate we'd get from people back home._

_She moved in two months ago. She moved in and she's the best goddamned assistant I could ever find._

_It's my job, now, to help out with problems people have. To help them out with magics and spells and whatnot. Sort of like the witches did on 'Kiki's Delivery Service'._

_It's tons of fun._

_But I haven't really thought about going home._

_I look back at Mina and something twists in my gut at the thought of leaving her._

_She's so bright and beautiful. She smiles and rubs my back and cooks me food, and sings like a fucking siren. We have the greatest of arguments, and the make-up sex is fabulous._

_I've never exactly been what you would call a great fan of sex, in my old world. It's somewhat tiresome and frequently painful, and I'd done it with both genders. Sure there's some pleasure, but there's also a lot of inexperienced groping and boredom. The only person I ever enjoyed it, actually **liked** doing it with was Lien, and that in itself was pretty damned awkward, as it was our respective first times. _

_But with Mina?_

_I've never experienced more pleasure, enjoyment, and straight out hilarity with any other person in my life, especially during such an intimate . I'd never been so achingly vulnerable with anyone, and been so completely and utterly welcomed. We made love, as cliché a term as I've always thought it to be, but there's no better way to describe it. She saw me - **all of me** - and said I was beautiful. For the first goddamned time in my fucking life, someone said that to me and meant every damn word._

_Christ, I'm so in love with this woman it hurts._

_A knock at the door. I wonder if it's the Elder's messenger. I know they wanted to talk to me about something._

_They've been pretty odd. Looking at me strange. So have the villagers. Asking me why I don't give more of my blood._

_It's getting strange, here. Need to be on my guard. Gin and Shere can now use my magic to grow to adult forms. I now can feel them in my heart, and Gin tells me he can feel me in his, and so can Shere. Gin tells me that the two of them have become my familiars. I'm becoming a proper Magus, he said._

_Gin's also convinced me to be ready to leave at any time. I have a sack that the former Magus left behind, and it's a sack of Infinity. I thought I would cry when I found it._

_Everything essential I have stuffed into it. It never leaves my side._

_It would be so easy to let my guard down._

_But I can't. Not even in this slice of paradise I've found._

_~KL_

* * *

**DATE:**

**MY LOCATION: **_A cruise ship traveling to Loguetown_

**PLACE: **_East Blue_

_Oh God._

_Oh God._

_I still feel her blood on my hands. The pain, the fear, the terror._

_I never even got to tell her I loved her._

_They tied me up. Whipped me raw. A whip for each villager. They'd get the blood from it, the Elders said. Blood to cure all ills. Then they would bleed me dry. Aratuck would prosper for centuries, they told me. It was a sacrifice for the greater good. They caged Gin and Shere, who screamed for me, and told me they would be eaten. Their corpses, after I died. Food for their families._

_They whipped me. Over, and over, and over again. The villagers crowded below, howling like dogs. A thrashing mob. Laughing and pointing and cheering with every strike of the whip._

_Then Mina…_

_Oh God, __**Mina**__._

_I woke up four days later on a cruise ship. The captain told me he fished me, Gin, and Shere from the water. We had been surrounded by wreckage, and he assumed we had been the survivors of a crash. I affected amnesia, and bargained with the captain to pay him a great deal in return for him taking me to Loguetown without putting me on the guest register. From Loguetown I can head to the Grand Line. Gin tells me I should be fairly safe from the Daemons there. That means all I'll have to worry about are the humans. _

_Hoo-rah._

_We stopped on an island, and I was left alone for the night. I drank myself into a stupor. It rained._

_Days later, as I sit here, on the bed in the tiny little cabin I've been allotted, with Gin in his big panther form so I can rest my still aching back against his warm side, Shere draped over my feet, as big as she could be in this tiny place, I look at the newspaper on of the cabin boys had brought me, my Infinity bag resting against my hip. It survived too._

_In big letters, the newspaper's headline reads: "ARATUCK ISLAND WIPED OFF THE MAP, NO SURVIVORS"_

_I'm so tired. I've been crying off and on for the past three days. The grief and hatred in me seem to consume me. The guilt for all the lives lost is pretty big too, even though they wanted to kill me. But mostly I mourn for Mina._

_Gin tells me that one of the books I took from the old Magus's house will teach me how to create limiters for myself. I'm not sure I should, to be honest._

_Are all humans like the ones on Aratuck?_

_I can't help but look at every human who passes with suspicion. My mind is always, always, always thinking about ways to neutralize and eliminate the potential threats I see around me. I don't speak to other people. I don't like being touched._

_I wasn't exactly the most trusting person at home. But now I find I can only trust the animals around me. And of course, my most loyal friends, Gin and Shere Khan._

_I think I know now why Fisher Tiger hated humans so much._

_I don't blame him, to be honest._

_Because once who've been exposed to the very worst of humanity, it's hard to keep your faith in its "inherent goodness" or some such bullshit._

_Gin tells me to sleep. Shere rumbles her agreement by my feet._

_I think I will._

_I'm so damned tired._

_~KL_


	2. To the Grand Line

**On the Ocean Blue**

She was always just an ordinary girl…Until the day she wasn't. (OC-Insert)

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Chapter Two. We'll see how that goes. The journal entries will be sporadic from now on.

**Warnings:** OC, lots of foul language, bisexuality, blood, mentions of torture, rape, minor character death, more will be added as needed

* * *

**Chapter Two:**

To the Grand Line

* * *

There was a woman walking down the pounded dirt road that snaked through the main area where Loguetown's vendors offered a wide array of products for sale to the native people, the tourists, the Marines, and pirates who passed through.

She was fairly tall, about 5"9 in a pair of worn sandals. She wore oversized, baggy clothing that hid very well the fact that she was both a woman and a fighter of some skill: a gray hooded jacket, black slacks, and brown gloves, though a very careful observer would be able to note the swell of breasts beneath the jacket and the faint outline of muscled arms and legs as they pressed against the fabric. But most people took one look at her and assumed male. It was an impression she worked hard to cultivate.

It was always better to be a man alone than a woman alone.

Her dark hair was about shoulder-length, held out of her eyes by a dark headband and braided back severely, though strands occasionally fell in the woman's tanned, handsomely angular face. She had a mouth that seemed made for kissing, wide and sensuous, though the effect was slightly dimmed by the scar that slashed the right side of it, pulling them down into a hint of sneer. Her eyes were hidden behind a pair of enormous sunglasses, and slung over one arm was a dark blue satchel shot through with gold strands.

She could have been any one of the pirates, bounty hunters, or fighters who passed through the gates of Loguetown on her way to the Grand Line, but perhaps the strangest thing about her was her two companions.

Walking close by her feet were two cats – one orange, the other black. But they seemed fairly ordinary and she certainly wasn't the first to have cats as pets and come through Loguetown.

A careful observer, however, would see stripes of black in the orange cat's coat as the sun danced off its fur, and that the black cat's eyes were silver.

But there were no careful observers on the streets of Loguetown who cared to look twice at what appeared to be a very ordinary man walking down the street and causing no harm to anyone.

The woman stopped and sniffed the air.

"Gin, Shere, I smell goat kabobs. Want to go get some?" Even her voice could have belonged to a man, being dark and warm, like finely aged whiskey.

Both cats immediately began purring and twining about her legs.

She snorted. "Jesus Christ, you little beggars. All right then, let me see if I can rustle up some money…I got some from the cruise ship. I'll need a bit more. And might's well get some extra money for the trip ahead." She looked carefully around, only to smile when she saw a very rich looking woman speaking pointedly to a harried looking silk vendor. And the money purse at her belt.

She grinned. "Wait here, Shere, Gin."

* * *

The goat kabobs were delicious. And the seller willingly chopped up several plates of meat for her piggish cats.

Kelly Lewis sat in the back of the restaurant, her back nestled into the corner, eyes watchful behind the enormous sunglasses she'd snatched from a particularly lecherous man she'd encountered on the cruise ship. Shere Khan, safe behind her glamoured disguise of a regular orange cat, lay in her lap, belly distended from goat meat. Gin curled up on the table, appearing to be asleep but really just as watchful and observant as his Mistress.

She sighed. She'd asked around about any ships heading to the Grand Line, but few people were. The Marines had a ship going out in a week, but they'd refused her request to take her with them. And she really didn't want to deal with anyone associated with the World Government for long periods of time.

She'd asked some pirates, but she trusted none of them, seeing the greed and avarice in their eyes and hands. She could trust none of them not to cut her throat in her sleep or try and throw her cats overboard. She was not going with any of them.

All she wanted was a ship with people on it who wouldn't bother her, who would get her to the Grand Line and not ask any questions concerning why. It wasn't like she didn't have money or anything, studying the fat purse she'd nicked from the rich lady.

And there was another reason she had to at least be reasonably sure that the ship she sailed with was vaguely trustworthy, and wouldn't try to stab her in the back, or ask too many questions, or get nosy.

She peeled off her gloves and studied her wrists and palms for a moment.

Barely visible in the faded light of the restaurant, dark silver scales glimmered faintly.

Another problem she had to deal with – her scales. She'd noticed them a couple of years ago, but hadn't written anything about them because they scared her too much. They'd grown considerably over the years, forcing her to wear her clothes that covered every inch of her body. She'd discovered early on that a majority of humanity did _not_ like anything that looked human and had scales. Even Mina hadn't been too happy with them.

She closed her eyes and breathed in deep, trying not to remember some of the close calls she'd had over the years because of those damnable things. She had soon discovered that it wasn't for her blood that (a majority) of humans chased her – the legends of the Magi weren't as well-spread as she thought – but for the fact that she was turning into a fucking _Sea Snake_.

And she was a very, very valuable commodity in the world of slavery. The humanoid sea snakes had hid in the very deepest parts of the ocean or found Magi for protection, or maybe they'd gone back to the Goddess of the sea, who'd created them along with the Fishmen – the tales weren't clear - but they'd all but vanished. And no one was stupid enough to go hunting them in the deep ocean, or in the New World, where they were rumored to live. You _couldn't_ find Sea Snakes on 'civilized' land anymore.

_'Except for me,'_ Kelly thought, rubbing a hand over her face as she shuddered. She'd been caught only twice. Only twice. Like her time trapped in the castles of the Daemons, it was not an experience she was keen on repeating. Thank God people just straight out hadn't believed the slavers when they'd boasted about having a silver-scaled Sea Snake in their cages, and she'd been able to escape before they could show evidence.

Her fingers ran over the rough surface of the tarnished silver, reflexively touching the lighter, scarred bands around her wrists. She had the scales everywhere. On her arms, her legs, her hips, shoulders…but none grew on her back. Not surprising, considering the scar tissue there.

While she admired the silvery color, it was more than a little horrifying. _She was turning into a completely different race._ She had been born a human and god damn it, a human she wanted to stay.

There were some pretty damn cool advantages to being a Sea Snake – extra strength, speed, endurance, and she was a little bit sure that she might be developing poison glands – but it was still terrifying. She'd dealt with the magic, with the talking cats, etc, etc, so on and so forth, but _this_…

She liked being human, preferred it, actually. It allowed her to be inconspicuous. She had enough trouble being a human Magi, anyway!

And besides, she was going home, and her parents would fully expect her to be human when she got there.

Gin cracked open one eye. "But you were never really human, doll. Magi rarely are."

"I was born of a human mother and father, though."

"Doesn't always matter. And besides, I highly doubt that."

Kelly sighed and rested an elbow on the table. "Are you _ever_ going to clarify that?"

"Nope."

"Lovely." Kelly stood up, Shere firmly clasped in her arms. "Anyway, let's go see if we can rustle up a ride. I don't want to be on this island any longer than I have to be, though I may have to make a stop at some shops before we do. Once I'm in the Grand Line, those fucks won't be able to get at me as easily, right?"

"Correct," Gin replied, and leapt onto her shoulder. "The magnetic fields there should prove ample barrier against most of them. If we get to the New World, we will be even more protected from all but the strongest. I know you want to go home, but-"

"I can't even begin to do that unless I get a real teacher with a deeper knowledge of what it means to be a Magus and I find a safe place to hide out. I planned on going to the New World, anyway, baka-Aido. If there's a Magus strong enough to teach me in this world, he or she'll be there," Kelly said as the black cat curled around her shoulders and she tucked Shere into one of the outside pockets of the Infinity sack, so she could peek her head out when she woke up. She quickly walked out the door and down a small alley.

"…Mistress…have you considered going to the Straw Hat pirates?"

She froze, then kept walking. "No, can't say I have…You being in my mind is rather annoying, Gin-Aido."

"Mistress, from what I saw when I was helping you rebuild your mindscape after...what happened, the Straw Hat pirates are an honorable group and their Captain even more so. And besides, we need to get to the Grand Line and the New World. We both know they'll get there. They may ask questions, but I very much doubt their navigator will refuse, especially with the money you have and how hard you'll work," He said.

"I don't want to fucking interfere with the events of the story, Gin. Who fucking knows what will happen if I'm there? What will change? And I know perfectly well that Luffy will want me for his crew after he sees what I'm capable of. In the New World Arc, the Straw Hat pirates have _nine_ members."

"There's nothing that says you can't be the tenth," he offered in a reasonable tone.

"I want to go _home_, Gin. _Home._ To my family and friends and where I've always lived. To my house and my parents who are probably freaking the fuck out over my disappearance. I've only gotten fear and hate and greed from the people here. Why should I _want_ to stay? The only reason I'm going to the New World is because it's the best place to find a teacher, to find out what'd happening to me, or maybe even to find someone who can send me home," She said, fingers trembling.

"But what will they say when they've seen the new you? Mistress, you're not even completely human anymore. Have you thought of _that_? You also know that the Straw Hats will easily accept your more scaly bits."

Kelly sighed, and rubbed a hand over her face. "I can't think about that. Besides, I knew the manga and anime characters. Not the people…Anyway, while we're here, let's do some shopping. I need to pick up some things and fleece a few more marks before we get to the Grand Line. Something tells me I won't be able to pick-pocket people so easily there."

"_Mistress…_"

"What?" She asked, walking out of the alley. "I need new clothes and money. I need some undergarments, which I can't create with my powers. And besides, it's not like Luffy and the others will even be here today. They've probably already come or have yet to, considering the fact that Smoker is still in charge around here. We can go look for a ship after."

* * *

Kelly yawned as she walked out of the small store with her bag in one hand, which she quickly stuffed into the Infinity Sack. She'd also stopped at another store.

But she had no idea if she would ever find the courage to use what she had bought there. It still hurt.

"Yosh! Let's find a ship to get us off this bumfuck island!" She declared, determinedly cheerful. Several people turned her way, glaring, and a hot blush stole over her cheeks.

"_Moron_," Gin whispered into her neck, curled once more around it.

"Hahahaaaa…many pardons," she said and immediately made her exit.

Well, she tried to. As she turned to her left, she crashed into another person, making her stagger back, and making the other person fall to the ground.

"Oh, Jesus Christ I'm sorry!" Kelly said, kneeling to help the other person up, only to freeze in shock.

It was a woman, wearing a white shirt with yellow stripes, a light brown miniskirt, and strappy, heeled sandals. Her skin was fair and her hair was the color of tan…ger…ines…

The navigator of the Straw Hat pirates, "Cat Burglar" Nami, groaned.

"It's okay. H-help me up, please?" The orange-haired girl asked, and it snapped Kelly out of her shock, and she quickly hauled the other female to her feet. She knelt back down and picked up the bags that had spilled and handed them to her.

"Many pardons," Kelly said with as firm a smile as she could manage, one that was returned by the navigator.

"God damn it, ask her! You may not get another chance!" Gin hissed in her ear.

Kelly closed her eyes for the briefest of moments. Oh, what the hell. It wasn't like she could be sure that any other ship would actually make it to the New World. At the very least, these guys would get to Fisman Island, and maybe there she could get some answers about what she was turning into.

"Ah, excuse me, but you wouldn't happen to be going to the Grand Line, would you?"

Nami stopped and looked warily at her. "Why do you want to know?"

"Because I want to go there myself. I'm willing to pay for and work for my room and board, if your ship has one to spare. I'm pretty desperate here. No one else seems to be going that way, I don't have the sea skills to take a ship there myself." Kelly admitted.

Nami crossed her arms over her chest and studied her for a long, long while. Kelly restrained the urge to fidget before the navigator nodded. "Is that so? Show me the money, first. Then we'll negotiate."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"It's Nami. If we're going to be traveling together, you should call me by my name…Are those cats?"

Kelly grinned and gently petted Shere's head, which was poking out of the Sack. Gin purred around her shoulders. She had no attention of ever doing anything that would attach her to the Straw Hats, and treating them all formally, as a servant to an employer did, should do the trick.

"Aye, they're my friends. Will they be a problem, Ma'am?"

She held out an arm, and let Gin walk to the entranced navigator, who cuddled him as the little flirt purred like a motor. Kelly sniggered as the navigator all but melted. Who knew tough-as-nails Nami was such a sucker for a cat?

"Of course not. Come on, you can help me carry my bags, and we'll negotiate as we do it."

Kelly closed her eyes. What the hell had she just gotten herself into? Was she _insane_? Asking for a ride on the Merry Go?

Ah well. What was life without a little risk? And she knew that the ship would be leaving by the end of the day, so it was for the best. The sooner she was in the Grand Line, the better.

She took Nami's bags and gave a courtly bow, winking at the girl. "Lead on, my fair lady!" She declared, only to blink in confusion as Nami's eyes widened and she blushed.

"…Are you okay?" Kelly asked.

"A-ah, yes, I'm fine. Let's go."

* * *

Kelly felt the ache in her back just before Nami said it, distant eyes turned to the sky: "There's going to be a storm."

"Ma'am, how do you know?" Kelly asked, masking the pain from her aching back easily.

"The air pressure is dropping," Nami said, and quickly turned to her. "Grab the bags and let's go. I need to get the rest of my crew."

Kelly grabbed the bags, Shere leaping into her Sack, while Gin curled back around her neck, and quickly trotted after the orange-haired girl. There was a distant look in her eyes, and Kelly could have sworn she felt the sea itself move in Nami's bones at that moment.

_'Small wonder the girl's so competent at navigating. Christ Almighty,'_ Kelly thought with awe. After Kelly had shown Nami the amount of money, the rest of the trip had gone fairly easy. Nami was a good conversationalist, and Kelly felt somewhat comfortable around her.

Not completely, because that niggling fear was always there, no matter what she did, no matter who she would meet, that fear that the person across from her wanted her blood and her power. Wanted her dead or raped and dead.

But Kelly thought that her short sojourn would not be half as bad as she had thought. All she had to do was keep her powers hidden, and she would be able to leave just fine.

_'I'm such an optimist,'_ she thought with a sigh.

"Murphy's Laaaaaaaw," Gin crooned in her ear, and she restrained the urge to throttle him.

* * *

**DATE:** _I'm fair certain it's May 19__th__, though I've no idea what the year is in this world._

**MY LOCATION: **_…__The pirate ship Merry Go_

**PLACE: **_Heading towards the Grand Line…I GET TO SEE LABOON, WHOOOOO!_

_My introduction to the crew went fairly well. I was with Nami when she met up with the rest of her crew and she quickly introduced me before they all realized Luffy was on the execution platform. I got a suspicious look from Zoro, a glare from __**Sanji**__ of all people (I don't think he realized I was female – that was a blow to my vanity) when he saw I was standing so close to his precious Nami-swan, and a curious look from Usopp._

_Then they all realized Luffy was about to be executed and I was forgotten. Which was good thing, because I could barely manage to keep the smile off my face or from voicing the manic shrieks of joy my Inner Fangirl (who hadn't been killed off because of my experiences, strangely enough) was letting lose in my brain._

_I helped Usopp carry the Elephant Blue Fin Tuna (that's the proper name, right?) back to the ship, easily getting around that idiot Mohji and his pet lion. Nami showed me where my room would be – a tiny closet of a room, but more than adequate for me, Gin, and Shere._

_The storm began raging in earnest, and I helped Nami and Usopp keep it anchored so that Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji would be able to get back on. But I couldn't help glorying in the rain and wind and the tempest thrashing and singing around us. It was a surreal, but amazing experience, to say the least. I felt like my insides and head were stuffed full of power and it felt so DAMNED good._

_I had always liked storms, but this…This was a different thing entirely._

_GOD DAMN, I'm still shaking from it. _

_Anyway, I formally met Luffy during the absolutely sumptuous dinner Sanji made, and he seems to approve. Especially after Nami whacked him upside the head. Shere likes him. Spent the whole of dinner purring on his lap – the little flirt!_

_I swear, she's sometimes worse than Gin._

_Sanji still doesn't realize I'm a woman. I mean, I know I wear baggy clothes, that I'm fairly muscled, and have a deeper voice, but Jesus Christ, really?!_

_But goddamn the boy can COOK. Better than my Dad, and he ran restaurants for thirty years! He smiles too, in a way that sort of (stupidly, clichély) reminds me of the sun. He laughs and it's a great thing to hear. I'd like to be his friend. Maybe I could approach him about helping to do the dishes? With this crew, he would have a great amount to deal with._

_(He sort of reminds me of Mina. His smile is so beautiful, like hers was)_

_No...I can't think about that._

_Anyway, I think I should be getting to bed. I shouldn't be thinking about wanting to become friends with any of this crew, for all I find myself trusting them. Trusting them! Trusting humans!? What the hell is wrong with me? Haven't I learned my lesson by now?_

_But I want to. God how I want to trust them, to become their nakama. To know that someone else would have my back like Morgan and Mikhail did, and not just so they could sink a knife in it._

_But I can't._

_After all, I won't be staying._

_~KM_

* * *

The sun was just cresting over the horizon when Kelly stepped out of her room, leaving Gin and Shere napping on the bed, and headed for the upper deck. She wanted to get a good, clean whiff of sea air. It would do her better than anything with caffeine in it, and she would need the strength for dealing with Reverse Mountain.

Hopefully they would reach it today. Would they have to go through that ridiculous Dragon filler arc?

She seriously hoped not. She would very much like to get into the Grand Line sooner rather than later. She could feel the slight prickling on her forearms that always heralded the arrival of the Daemons, at least within a day or so.

She pushed open the door and stepped out into the chilled morning air. She felt herself smile involuntarily as she looked out at the rowdy waves pushing them further along and breathed the sea-salted air in deep. In the distance she could see what she assumed to be Reverse Mountain.

It looked to be a wonderful morning. Kelly grinned involuntarily, basking in the idea that she was fairly safe and that the Straw Hats wouldn't do anything to hurt her. Nami would kill them if she did. Kelly had given the girl half the contents of the rich lady's purse as payment, along with a promise of free labor. She heard the soft patter of footsteps behind her, but kept staring out at the ocean, even though her fingers twitched reflexively.

"Ah, you're up." Kelly turned to see Nami.

"So are you. Pardon me, ma'am, but you don't seem the type to be up this early," Kelly said, nodding respectfully.

Nami sighed. "Well, since you're up, you can help me with my maps. Follow me." The two of them walked into kitchen, where Nami spread out some maps. "We'll reach Reverse Mountain soon. About the rest of your payment – doing minor chores. Are you good with a needle?"

Kelly blinked, then smiled. "Competent, ma'am. My Mama made sure of that." Kelly had little head for the traditionally feminine jobs, but her mother, having come from a family where it was mandatory for the women, made damn sure her artistically inclined daughter knew at least some of the things she herself had learned at her own mother's knee.

"You'll also be doing dishes, helping Usopp repair things around the ship, running errands for us when we reach islands, and some other things when I think of them. I won't ask you to do the laundry – each of us does our own, but if anyone has any tears or rips in their clothing, do you think you could take care of it?" Nami asked.

Kelly shrugged, then had an idea. "If I had the materials, then of course. Ah, ma'am, do you think you could tell me what you know about the Grand Line and how to get in it? I'm not exactly what you call knowledgeable about the sea and the Grand Line in particular. I'd like to learn about weather 'n what, if you have the time, since it seems best to learn from a navigator."

Her power _came_ from the sea. (Well, water itself, but hey, technicalities) It seemed almost criminal that she knew so very little about it and what made it work. It would be fascinating to learn about the Grand Line from the woman who would one day become its most legendary navigator.

And besides, if she wanted to get to the New World without the Straw Hats, she needed to know something.

Nami outright _stared_ at her.

"Why?"

Kelly raised an eyebrow. "I want to know. And besides, if I get more time to spend with a lady so beautiful and obviously talented, that's no real hardship in my books." And flashed the orangette a smile, casually throwing the flirtation in there. She didn't mind flirting, with men or women. It was amusing, and a long habit after the chivalrous manners her father had worked to instill in her. And it made people like her a lot more than they planned on doing.

Nami gaped. Obviously she'd had few people express a real interest in her life's work. It wasn't like her nakama didn't understand and appreciate it, but the only one on the ship (so far) that could even come remotely close to having the book-smart intelligence to understand Nami's dream was, maybe, Usopp – and _perhaps_ Sanji.

But Usopp didn't strike her as the type to be able to sit down and listen to someone rant on about the very technical aspects of their passion, and Sanji was an inconsolable flirt. She doubted he would pay much actual attention to the subject, instead of the speaker.

Kelly felt herself blink as a dull flush spread over Nami's cheeks. "Y-You shouldn't do that," she spluttered.

Er…

"Do what, ma'am?" Kelly asked politely, resisting the urge to scratch her head in confusion.

"Sm-smile! Like _that_!"

Uh…

"…That's my normal smile, ma'am."

Nami let out a frustrated sound and turned back to her maps. "Never mind. If you want to learn, sit down and shut up. I'll be talking a lot to myself."

"Ma'am yes Ma'am," Kelly retorted cheekily, getting a snort from the other female.

Kelly leaned forward and paid close attention to the words the navigator was saying, as they sat around the kitchen table.

And for the first time in a very, very long time, Kelly thought she might really, really like another human being. It went beyond the admiration for the two-dimensional character in the manga and anime.

Nami was a good woman, a passionate one. Greedy, yes, and also a thief, but hell, Kelly had her own avarice for jewels and money, and she was _also_ a thief. She couldn't blame Nami in the slightest.

The door opened just as name began explaining something about sea currents and Kelly heard a flamboyant voice ring out.

"Nami-swan! Would like some coffee this morning, before we head…to…Oh. It's you," The cook's blinding smile vanished when he saw the two women sitting there and leveled a glare at Kelly, who blinked in consternation.

That was going to get annoying _real_ quick, Kelly realized, and felt a hint of frustration boil up as she looked at him, impeccably dressed and unbearably debonair, even so early in the morning.

She could smell the tobacco, various spices, and the musk of man that made up his personal scent even from so far away. His eyes were the crystal blue of shining oceans untouched by man and his blond hair looked like silk.

The kick of arousal was almost painful, and she wanted to snarl at him. All thoughts of friendship from the previous night were gone. All she could see now was a stupidly flirtatious man who couldn't see she was a female, obviously thought she was making a move on Nami, and was a perfect amalgamation of two of the only five humans she ever loved in any world.

Her dad had smelled like a kitchen mixed with fragrant tobacco, even when he had little time to cook, and had always been such a stylish dresser that it had been him, not Mom, who gave her the tips on how to dress to impress. The homesickness she thought she had managed to set aside made her bones ache.

And the rest of him reminded her so much of Mina it was like a kick to the chest, ten times more painful than the arousal.

She fought the tears stinging her eyes with the bitter anger that threatened to explode from her chest.

How _dare_ he smell like her father.

How_ dare_ he look so much like Mina.

She wanted, irrationally, hatefully, to make him pay for it. She knew he couldn't help it, but God Almighty, he made her want to break things. Preferably over his head.

She calmed her rage with a mischievous idea. If he thought she was making the moves on Nami, why not tick him off even more by actually doing it? God, she wanted to…to _niggle_ him somehow. Piss him off as much as he pissed her off.

"Maaaaa, cook-san, Nami-_chan_ here was just giving me a crash course on the sea and on the weather she so adores. It's been quite a…_educational_ experience, hasn't it, m'dear?" She turned back to the woman and in a smooth, seamless motion, caught the navigator's hand and brought it up to her lips, pressing a soft kiss to her palm.

Nami turned crimson, and so did Sanji, but for a much different reason than Nami did. She could practically hear the steam pouring out of his ears and his teeth grinding.

"Ah, anyway, thanks for the lesson, Nami-_chan_. I do _really_ appreciate it. I'm going to go back and check on Gin and Shere Khan, so don't bother with setting a place for breakfast for me. Call me when we hit Reverse Mountain, if you need my help."

She grabbed some fruit from the fresh stack in the basket in the middle of the kitchen table and sauntered her way out, catching Sanji's glare out of the corner of her eye.

"Stop that idiotic glaring, it makes you look like an even bigger moron than you are – which is a pretty substantial fool in and of itself," she whispered as she passed, and was perversely delighted to hear him actually _snarl_ at her.

Gin would probably call her an idiot, but damn, riling the blond man up felt _really_ therapeutic.

* * *

**DATE:** _May 20__th_

**MY LOCATION: **_Merry Go, my bedroom_

**PLACE: **_Heading up Reverse Mountain_

_A quick entry, before I head back out. _

_Nami told me that she wouldn't need my help, as I was technically a guest and admitted to her that I pretty useless on ships. I agreed and decided to barricade myself in my room until we reach Laboon._

_What? It's not like I ever made any bones about how little I know about ships. I teleported all over the islands, remember? I still don't the difference between the directions. Starboard, upboard, downboard…whatever the fuck they're called, I still can't make any heads or tails between them._

_I probably should, considering the Grand Line is 90% water and you usually need ships to maneuver around, but hell, whatever. Nami will undoubtedly fill me in during the rest of her lectures._

_So, about Sanji… Why do I feel like I just through down the bright red gauntlet in front of particularly enraged bull?_

_…__Oh God damn it, I pissed off the amazingly talented cook of this ship. _

_He's going to take every opportunity to sabotage my meals, isn't he? And treat me like Luffy on a food rampage?_

_…__I'm an idiot._

_I couldn't help it, though. Fucker looks just like Mina. Smelled like my Dad, too, which DID NOT help matters at all._

_I'm attracted to him. There, I said it. I always was. When Morgan swooned over Zoro and Mikhail over Robin, my eyes always trailed to the cook of the show. He was my ideal man – like a blond Cary Grant who could cook, and had the chivalrous manners of my father. He acted like an idiot around women, but hell, sometimes I didn't blame him at all, considering Nami and Robin and the beautiful girls he swooned over. And perfection was never really perfection at all, in my books._

_Flaws suit a man better than any notion of 'perfection'._

_My fascination with him has seemed to carry over into real life. Despite everything I've gone through, despite __**Mina**__…_

_…__I'm still attracted to him._

_God fucking damn it all to Hell and back._

_This fucking sucks ass._

_~KM_

* * *

Usopp had come to get her, saying they were heading up the Mountain, and would _he_ like to come see it?

So it wasn't just Sanji who thought she was a guy, Kelly thought grumpily, even as she pasted on a smile and followed the dark-skinned boy out, initiating a rousing conversation with the sniper that left him with smiles and laughter.

It was easy, she thought, to make them like her.

Oh, Kelly had _always_ been good at making people like her. Teachers, authority figures, judges, potential employers, neighbors, etc. Morgan had once called her a champion brown-noser, but Mikhail had shaken his head.

_Not a sycophant, no,_ He'd said, with a solemn look in his eyes_, but a spider. You're very good at manipulating people, Kel, you know that?_

Kelly sighed. She wasn't a spider, she was just…trying to make sure these people would be very unlikely to stab her in the back. It was necessary.

After all, these weren't exactly one-dimensional characters on a page or two-dimensional characters on a screen. They were real people, with depths and sides she'd never seen before. She couldn't keep thinking of them as _characters._

They were human beings, people, real, and unpredictable.

And they were pirates.

Dangerous ones.

Gin curled around her shoulders, purring to try and alleviate some of the tension in her shoulder blades. But she couldn't let down her guard. Not even here.

It was a little tiring, to be honest.

* * *

It was a pretty damn amazing sight, as the ship zoomed up the side of Reverse Mountain, the walls of the Red Line looming on either side, the carved stone arches passing so quickly overhead they seemed to be one continuous blur, the spray from the rushing current splashing against her face. It felt like Kelly was in the front seat of a convertible sports car, racing down the highway at top speeds, without a seatbelt.

Terrifying, yes.

But also fucking _spectacular_ to behold.

She noticed that they were coming to the top and quickly sat down, anchoring her ass to the wood with some magic so she wouldn't go flying off, and pulled Gin into the safety of her arms.

The ship leapt into the air, and Kelly and Gin sniggered as everyone but them went flying into the air, screaming their heads off, before the ship crashed back down and gravity pulled the pirates down with her.

They clung like limpets to various places around the ship, and Kelly just smirked as they zoomed down the other side.

She stood up as they began to gain speed, and laughed.

She thought going up the side of the Mountain had been fast, but this was like a Mach-5 racecar speed.

"Glorious," She sighed. "Fucking _glorious_. Hell, traveling on this ship is worth it, purely for this."

Then, a strange booming noise echoed through the area. Kelly restrained the urge to dance around like a maniac. It was _Laboon!_ The adorable whale who Luffy would try to beat the shit out of and eventually come to befriend. The adorable whale who'd once been friends with the Rumbar Pirates. The freaking adorable whale who had no idea his friend Brook was still alive and that the rest of his nakama had not forgotten him, even seconds before death.

She _adored_ Laboon. Back home, she'd had a plushie just like him. And better yet – he was an animal! Not human!

Which meant she could get as attached to him as she damn well felt like.

She could hear Zoro yell "Did you hear that?" to Nami, who simply shrugged.

"Probably the wind going through the strange rock formations around here. There are plenty of them, and any of them could have caused that noise," she yelled back, and turned her attention to enjoying the ride.

Kelly sniggered helplessly. _'That's what _you_ think.'_

She wanted to be able to talk to Laboon. She knew she could communicate with the whale and talk to him, though she would have to be careful about saying anything that would knock the story off-track.

And she didn't want to be around the ship itself, do anything that would mess up the introduction with Miss Wednesday and that 9 fellow, because with her smart mouth that was inevitable.

She would have to be outside to do that, though.

So, when they passed the Twin Capes, she would have to make a jump for it.

"Come on, Gin. Let's go get Shere Khan. I want to talk to Laboon, and we need to be outside to do that," she said, and quickly hurried back to her small room. "And just in case, if things go wrong, we won't be in danger."

"A wise idea, Mistress. Why do you want to talk to the whale, though?"

Kelly giggled. "Because he's cute, of course!"

The cat sighed. "…I thought so."


	3. First Impressions

**On the Ocean Blue**

She was always just an ordinary girl…Until the day she wasn't. (OC-Insert)

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Chapter Three.

Well, alright then…If I get to chapter four that will be even better.

**Warnings:** OC, lots of foul language, bisexuality, blood, mentions of torture, rape, minor character death, OOC-ness as I get used to characterizations of the characters, POV switches, more will be added as needed

In this chapter will be the perspective of some of the Straw Hats on our protagonist. I'll leave the rest for later chapters.

* * *

**Chapter Three:**

First Impressions

* * *

**SANJI**

Sanji didn't trust the guest Nami-san had brought on the ship. The other man was quite handsome, with dark, mischievous eyes and darker hair, and a sharply angular face flecked at the edges with some scars. There something almost feminine in that face and in the walk, something that made him want to instinctively fawn over the dark-haired man, but Sanji wasn't fooled.

It was the face of a consummate scoundrel. A man who would take a woman, use her until he was finished, and discard her. He'd seen plenty of them in his time.

He knew Nami-san could handle herself quite well, but those dark, almost painfully exotic eyes seemed to be constantly laughing at them all, just waiting for them to slip up so he could strike. A conman, born and bred.

And when he'd walked in on the two of them talking, cozily, _intimately_, over the spread of Nami-san's maps, he knew that their guest was up to no good. Then those steely eyes had turned to him, flashing with some dark emotion (anger at interrupting his seduction of Nami-san, obviously) then turned flinty.

He'd kissed Nami-san's _palm_! Turned the beautiful woman's face the color of a tomato, flirting with her, calling her Nami_-chan_.

He fumed as he made breakfast for the crew, remembering the snide words the man had breathed to him on his way out.

_"__Stop that idiotic glaring, it makes you look like an even bigger moron than you are – which is a pretty substantial fool in and of itself," the man whispered as he passed Sanji, chuckling._

Sanji breathed deeply, trying not to get angry. If Nami-san wanted him on the ship, on the ship he would stay until he overstepped himself. Then Sanji would have the utmost pleasure of booting the scoundrel off the ship into the ocean himself.

Sanji's fingers closed painfully tight over the edge of the sink as he remembered how those stormy eyes carelessly sneered at him over the rims of his sunglasses.

Oh, he _definitely_ did not trust Kel Ohtori.

* * *

**NAMI**

Nami still wasn't quite sure what possessed her to take the man on their ship. He had money, yes, but normally she was quite leery about trusting strange men. Especially strange, _handsome_ men.

He had a surprisingly pleasing mixture of feminine and male traits. He was handsome, yes, with the hint of strong shoulders, a slightly scarred face, and definite muscles, but there was also something undeniably female about him. He swayed just a bit when he walked, his lips were wide and looked soft, even with the scar pulling them down, and his hair was long, giving a softness to his sharp face.

But there was this sexual charisma about him, this animal magnetism that had drawn her in the most. He reminded her of a predator, dangerous, dangerous, _dangerous_, but all the more handsome and desirable for it. She knew from her conversations with him that this was a man with intelligence and a skill at manipulation that almost rivaled her own.

He'd been subtly controlling the conversation they'd had in the shops – allowing her to make most of the remarks, of course – but he'd been in control of that conversation, certainly. She'd let him, but only because it was just so stimulating to talk to someone who was very clearly on her level in terms of brain power.

He flirted without even meaning to, though he meant it completely sincerely, and without the slightest clue what that devastating smile could do to those he'd aimed it towards. He was a man only vaguely conscious of the fact that he was handsome, but with the solid, subconscious knowledge that he could do a great deal of damage with it.

But there was a softness there when he spoke about his cats, a love and loyalty returned in full by the sleek Gin and the lovable Shere Khan. There had been a faint hint of exhaustion in those dark green eyes, and perhaps it was for that reason that Nami had agreed, even more so than the money.

Kel Ohtori may very well have been an outwardly confident, easy-going man, but on the inside, he was a man tired of running.

She knew what that was like.

She knew it very well.

* * *

**USOPP**

The man intimidated Usopp. There, he admitted it.

In his mind at least, Usopp made a decent effort to be completely truthful. His Mama had taught him that.

And while he had fun making up the stories in his head and boasting about them, he tried his best not to internalize them. Until he got stronger, he wouldn't be able to face up to the threats they'd face in the Grand Line. He knew he couldn't get (too) delusional.

But hell, he had fun doing it, and as long as he had his nakama to back him up and a little bit of common sense (a rarity on this ship) about when to stop, he would be fine. And besides, what was wrong with a good story? It amused his captain, too, so what was the harm?

Anyway…back to the guest Nami had brought aboard the ship.

He was scary. He was tall – like Zoro and Sanji tall – with dark eyes and a scarred face. The way he moved reminded Usopp a little too much of a viper, ready to strike. But he had a nice smile and seemed friendly enough, and he adored his cats.

And they seemed to like him right back. Kaya had always said that if a cat really liked someone and deigned to show affection to that person, then that meant they were a good person. Cats were great judges of character.

Unless…were these cats evil? He'd heard stories about black cats before! The familiars of witches and evil sorcerers. Perhaps this Kel Ohtori was really a sorcerer from a dark and evil castle, come to take their souls and feed them to his cats so they could help him take over the world!

He shivered, and looked back at the man sitting against the upper deck and gulped as those almost predatory eyes met his for one intense moment. Then he quickly turned away, trying his hardest not to shake too badly.

Oh, yes, he was _very_ intimidated by this man.


	4. I Shouldn't Find This So Funny

**On the Ocean Blue**

She was always just an ordinary girl…Until the day she wasn't. (OC-Insert)

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Chapter Four. Yay! Now we get to the whale! And then Whisky Peak.

**Warnings:** OC, lots of foul language, bisexuality, blood, mentions of torture, rape, minor character death, OOC-ness as I get used to characterizations of the characters, headcanons of the Straw Hats, implied pairings, wee bit mental disintegration, more will be added as needed

_-…-_ indicates a flashback.

**Author's Note:** Hey guys, I'm going in for thyroid surgery in two days, so expect about a week or so of radio silence from me, so to speak. There's very little risk, and the recovery time is excellent, so don't worry. I should be just fine.

I'd like to thank everyone for their interest in my fic. It's really awesome to know people like this story and want to keep reading it, and it gives me a great deal of motivation as well. So thank you all very much, and I hope you enjoy the next chapter!

* * *

**Chapter Four:**

I Shouldn't Find This So Funny

* * *

The moment the Two Capes had come close enough, Kelly leapt out of the ship, Shere tucked into the Sack, Gin stuffed into the pocket pouch in the front of her jacket. She landed easily on the grass and quickly watched the ensuing drama as the Straw Hats saw Laboon and proceeded to freak the hell out.

She cackled as she hid behind a tree at their panic, and proceeded to nearly kill herself laughing as Luffy shot a cannonball into the whale's belly and then punched it in the eye. She kept giggling even the Straw Hat's ship vanished into Laboon's enormous maw and Luffy managed to fling himself on top.

But the humor vanished when she heard Luffy's screams.

"SPIT THEM UP!" There was pain in his voice. "THEY'RE MY NAKAMA AND WE'RE GOING ON AN ADVENTURE! GIVE THEM _BACK!"_

The smile on her lips faded as a memory forced its way to the forefront of her mind.

_"__GIVE HER BACK!" The rain was cold but her tears were so hot. "PLEASE GOD…"_

She could hear Luffy's next words mixed with the words inside her own head, and she fought the urge to choke.

"THEY'RE IMPORTANT TO ME!"

_"__SHE WAS EVERYTHING TO ME!"_

Kelly leaned back against the palm tree she'd been hiding behind, and sighed.

"Well, now I feel like a shitty person."

"It's not like they're dead," Shere Khan said, grooming herself by her Mistress's feet.

"Well, yeah, I know that and you know that, but the Rubberband Man over there doesn't. I was laughing at their panic, at their fear, while he thinks his nakama are dead. That doesn't make me feel like a good person. At all." She rubbed her face and groaned. "God damn it, why can't these people still be just characters to me?"

She yawned and sat down, leaning against the tree.

"We'll have to wait a bit. I'm going to take a nap. I'll need my energy to do the spell that'll let me talk with Laboon and I want to do some work on my mindscape. Shere, take watch. Tell me when Laboon surfaces." She closed her eyes and began to meditate, feeling the magic roll through her body like thunder as she fell deeper into her own subconscious.

* * *

She stood on the floor of a vast ocean that swarmed with countless life. Everything from the smallest goldfish to the mightiest Sea Kings swam, brushing up against her legs and arms with casual intimacy or swimming carefully by so she could run her fingers over their scales, fur, hair, skin.

She walked along the sandy-gravel floor, her hair unbound and flowing free above and behind her, draped in a translucent dress the color of a pearl. Her scales glimmered in the light that filtered down from the sun thousands of miles above the ocean and her smile was as free as she could never afford to be in real life.

Here, she was not scarred. Here, her scales were just another part of her. Here, she was beautiful. And it was here that she was most at home.

In the distance lay a castle crafted from coral in colors like the rainbow on steroids, from which toe-tapping, soul-thumping amalgamation of music from around the world she'd left behind drifted towards her like a siren's song.

On the gravel path she took, she could see the blackness and cracked ground from the day she'd…well…

She'd been working like mad to bring this place back to its original glory. She'd spent days on the cruise ship working on the ruined parts of the castle itself, but what little was left there would have to wait.

She stepped from the path, and headed to a large patch of black, smoky ground several yards away. Once she reached it, she sat down, and let the rolling magic spill from her limbs, sinking into the sad, torn ground.

* * *

Laboon's voice was a song, full of grief and pain and heartache beyond measure. Kelly opened her mouth and sang back, with words that were not words and full of just as much anguish as his.

He spoke of a man with strange markings on his face and dark blond hair with a voice that boomed like a drum. He spoke of another man with a black bush of hair and a melodious voice paired with the music that had soothed him as nothing else ever had. He spoke of a family whom he followed on a ship flying a pirate's flag high, lured by love and acceptance and the music that had become a part of him as few things ever could. He spoke of a promise he'd remembered for decades and would remember for decades more.

She spoke of a home far, far away from everything she now knew as reality, where her own family lived, a father with spices in his scent, a mother with smiles in her eyes, a sister and brother in all but blood who knew her like no one else ever would, and another girl with her heart in her eyes as she looked at the girl who'd saved her. She spoke of a blond haired woman with love in her eyes and eyes as blue as the sea, who vanished under the claws of a multi-limbed beast. She spoke of her new friends, small and sleek but so much more than that, and of the magic that allowed her to sing to him.

She also spoke of the man still waiting for him, and of the man who would give him the strength to wait even longer. Just wait, just wait, she sang to him. Let him challenge you, let him help you live.

Because while Laboon loved his nakama, it was so hard to keep going after so long.

She rested against the tree, snoozing with one eye cracked, as the Merry Go and Crocus emerged from Laboon's mouth. And after she'd offered a convincing enough explanation, charmed Nami into forgetting that Kelly had jumped ship, and heard Crocus tell Laboon's story, she sat back and waited, and smiled as Luffy gave her friend a reason to live.

Tears bubbled from those enormous eyes, and Laboon let out a burbling boom of a sound that made the ears of all the humans on board ache, but to her was something else entirely.

_Thank you, Magus…_

She had to bite her lip harshly to keep the tears from misting her eyes.

But a voice cut through her sentimentality.

"And who are you, then?" She turned, to see Crocus watching her as the crew got ready to leave and Luffy said his final goodbyes.

She smiled, lazily and without a care on the outside, though inwardly she tensed. To underestimate the doctor who'd kept Gol. D. Roger alive through his terminal illness was not something she would ever, ever do.

"A guest," she offered banally, still smiling. "These lovely folks agreed to drop me off in the Grand Line."

"I meant your name," Crocus said, not fooled in the least. She could see the knowledge in his eyes, and it took years of self-restraint to keep from tensing.

"Kel," she gave the fake name with nary a twitch of the brow. "Kel Ohtori. Why?"

He shrugged. "Just curious. Anyway, have fun."

The Straw Hats called their goodbyes to Laboon and Crocus both, the old man waving, the whale singing.

Kelly smiled, but all the while a voice in her head whispered a warning: _He knows._

* * *

It had taken them a while, slogging through the rapidly changing weather of the Grand Line – Kelly enjoying every moment of it, despite the backbreaking work involved, the rapidly changing climate stirring some undefinable something in her heart – when they'd entered a clear stretch of ocean. It would probably take them a little while before they reached the next island.

"Whisky Peak," she whispered under her breath.

"Did you say something?" She smiled at Zoro, who'd come up behind her.

"Oh, that's the name of the place I think we're heading," she offered, not even blinking as she lied her ass off. "I read about it in a couple books I found back on an island I was staying on before I met y'all."

"Your home?" he asked and Kelly felt her smile falter before she managed to cement it in place.

"No. Just a place I stayed. Why'd you want to know?" She asked, still smiling pleasantly.

"I just want to know why someone would want to travel with a bunch of pirates to head to the most dangerous sea in the world," Zoro said, resting back against the railing, looking perfectly at ease.

Dangerous, dangerous, _dangerous._ This man just _screamed_ it with every inch of his body, but alongside that was a healthy helping of warmth and loyalty for the straw-hatted boy who was chasing Usopp around in a light-hearted game of tag on the lower deck. She could see the way something in his eyes firmed, even as his whole face seemed to smile and melt at once, without a twitch of his lips.

_'__Well, well, well…_' Kelly thought, fighting a gleeful smirk. _'Wasn't expecting _that_.'_

But it made her feel a great deal more…sympathetic? Was that the word to use...towards the swordsman who she knew would give his life for his crew and his captain without a thought.

Not so comfortable as to confess who she really was, or anything crazy like that, but enough to give him a real smile, not the fake one she'd been careful to maintain around the rest of the pirates at all times.

"I just want to get home, Roronoa-san. Nothing wrong with that, is there?" She told him.

They stood in silence for several moments – not exactly a comfortable one, but rather a silence like the truce declared between two warring parties. Kelly watched Luffy and Usopp play and felt a lump rise up in her throat at the carefree friendship.

A memory flashed through her mind, so quick and sudden that she almost choked.

_-…The sun was warm, and she was with friends who wouldn't remark on the flabbiness of her arms, so Kelly stripped to the sting tank-top she wore under her oversized t-shirt, and lay back in the sun, listening to the birds cawing in the trees, the lap of the ocean against the beach, and the good-natured, restrained lust-filled squabbles of her two best friends in the world._

_'__They should just have at it one night and get it over with,' Kelly thought drowsily, the sun better than any lullaby. 'Hey, maybe I should get Morgan a condom for her birthday.'_

_The thought made her giggle, before she stretched her arms high above her head and yawned, only to blink when two pairs of warm, rough hands clasped around her wrists and ankles._

_"__What the fuck?" she bellowed, rearing out of sleepiness like a startled horse, and was lifted into the air._

_"__You're starting to look a little red there, Kel," Morgan's voice came from above her head, and Kelly assumed she was the one holding her wrists._

_"__You should take a little dip to cool off," Mikhail's teasing voice came from her feet as they moved closer to the ocean._

_Kelly's eyes bulged and she twisted to look at them both and the place they were heading._

_"__Oh, hell no, you had better not even try that, you snot-nosed brats!" Kelly barked, twisting frantically, trying to dislodge their grip, and nearly succeeding. Despite Morgan and Mikhail's toned bodies and considerable musculature, Kelly weighed around 270 and had her own muscles to go along with that._

_But they managed to keep a hold of her, and when they got about ankle-deep in the ocean, began to swing her, even as Kelly swore and swore and swore herself blue in the face, while they teased her._

_"__One," the two assholes sang together. If she hadn't been so pissed, she would have laughed straight out._

_"__Two…three!" With an almighty heave, the two sent her flying out over the water._

_"__FUCK YOU BO-!" Was all Kelly managed to get out before she crashed through the surface, choking on salt. Mikhail and Morgan waded out to her, and Kelly got a great deal of satisfaction by pantsing Mikhail and stealing Morgan's bikini top, leading to identical shrieks of rage from her two friends._

_They'd chased each other all over the shoreline for hours, before collapsing in a heap._

_Later, they'd enjoyed the fireworks display Mikhail's parents had put on for the neighbors in their upscale beach home, piled over each other in the hammock in the backyard._

_It was the best 4__th__ of July Kelly had ever had…-_

She sighed and fought back the sick roll in her stomach that she could now easily identify as homesickness.

"Are you all right?" Zoro asked, watching her closely.

She bit her tongue until she knew she could trust her voice.

"Ah, yes, Roronoa-san, I'm fine. Just got lost on memory lane, as it were. I think I see an island," she sidestepped, successfully diverting the swordsman's attention, to where a vague shape had appeared in the fog. Zoro went to go join the rest of his crew in the lower deck.

She could see the enormous cacti easily, and as she narrowed her eyes, saw the hundreds of thousands of tombstones that lined each of them. Her mouth twisted bitterly, and she felt two warm bodies twining around her ankles. Automatically she knelt down so Gin could leap onto her shoulders and she could pick up Shere Khan.

"An awful sight, isn't it?" She asked her friends.

Shere Khan shuddered. "Mama, I feel the death hanging over them," she whispered, trembling, and Kelly smoothed her fur, comforting the young tigress.

Gin leaned close to Kelly's ear, using the noise from Mr. 9's and Miss Wednesday's departure to speak.

"She's right, Mistress. Many, many people have met their untimely ends in this place," he said.

Kelly sighed. "Nothing like death to dampen my instinctive fangirl-y joy. Oh well. Not like I expected anything different, but still. Will I ever see the wonder in these places like I used to?"

"Perhaps when we get to Fishman Island you'll have a chance," Gin said. "Now you can't afford to, because it's a luxury those on the run _can't_ afford."

"You're such a spoilsport, Gin," Kelly said with a sigh, as Shere reached up to lick her chin. "Still, it'll be pretty neat to see Igaram and Vivi-hime. Hey…I wonder how beautiful Vivi-hime is in real life."

Gin snorted. "Pervert."

"Don't group me in with Sanji, baka-Aido," she remonstrated gently. "I just appreciate beauty is all."

"Kel, we'll be disembarking soon," Nami called and Kelly nodded.

She leaned against the wall as they sailed towards the mouth of the river. Her ears picked up the sounds of muttering coming from the land around them.

_"__Pirates!"_

_"…__warn Igarappoi."_

_"__Get ready, get ready…"_

As they emerged out of the fogbank, the crowd _erupted_, cheering and calling praises and welcomes.

"A little overdone, isn't it?" Gin commented wryly, making Kelly giggle helplessly.

"Can't say it isn't working," she remarked, looking towards the pirates. Usopp was blowing the crowd kisses and Luffy was laughing from his seat on Merry's head. Nami and Sanji looked a little poleaxed, and Zoro didn't have an expression on his face at all.

It occurred to Kelly that Roronoa Zoro was a lot smarter than the anime and manga had shown.

"Shere Khan, Gin, I want you to stay on the ship," Kelly whispered. "I'd rather not have you get involved in this, and I don't want those bounty hunters to get a hold of my things. I'll be back soon."

"Awww, but Mamaaaaa…" Shere Khan whined, and Kelly raised an eyebrow at her.

"Little miss, you'll spend this time with Gin learning how to strengthen your mindscape. I don't want anyone getting into your mind and turning you against me, or something horrible like that. Gin, you'll help her, right?"

He stood on her shoulders. "Of course, my Mistress. Come, Shere Khan." He brushed his whiskered cheek against hers before leaping down, the tigress cub grumbling, but obediently following nonetheless.

Nami called to her, and she willingly clambered down and off the ship behind the orange-haired navigator as Igaram welcomed them all.

Kelly looked to the sky and felt herself smile.

Over a hundred bounty hunters.

It should be quite fun.

* * *

**DATE: **_May, I think_

**MY LOCATION:** _Dew Drop Inn (It's actually called that! I thought I'd break something laughing)_

**PLACE:**_Whisky Peak, Grand Line_

_I found a quiet room to write in while I wait for the Baroque Works to make their move. I told Igaram (bro has some weird-ass hair) that I needed a room to lay down in, get some sleep in. He agreed rather easily, and had a tray sent up with some food and alcohol. Both the food and alcohol were spiked with sleep-drugs, of course. _

_Silly human._

_I could tell immediately. I didn't even need the spells I use on my food all the time, the smell was so damned strong. One of the good things about being a Sea Snake, I suppose._

_I negated the effects and ate my fill. I pretended to be asleep when Igaram or someone checked on me, trying to be quiet and subtle about it, but failing horribly. To my ears they were as loud as a stampede of horses._

_Something tells me those bounty hunters are going to give me few problems at all._

_Heh. Should be fun to teach these uppity humans their place._

_…__It's gone all quiet. I think it's time for the real party to begin._

_Hehehehehehehehe…_

_~KM_

* * *

She used _Geppo_ to reach the rooftop, her feet lightly striking the air and propelling her up. Even above her much prized _Soru _and _Kami-e_, it was Kelly's favorite technique of Rokushiki.

That's not to say she didn't like _Tekkai_, _Shigan_, and _Rokuogan_ (though she hadn't mastered those last two yet), because she honestly really, really _did_, but there was a great deal to be said for being able to fly.

She landed lightly on the roof and watched Zoro watch the Baroque Works people below.

"Come to join the party?" Zoro asked, not looking at her.

She snorted. "Do you mind? I was getting awfully bored waiting for them to try and attack."

He turned to her then and an evil smirk Kelly knew matched the one growing on her face curved his lips. He nodded and gestured to a spot next to him, and she primly took a seat.

He looked back and called out, almost _teasingly_, to the agents. "Hey, sorry to interrupt, but do you think you could let them sleep a little while longer? They're still pretty tired from the voyage."

The agents whirled, shock on all of their faces, and Kelly threw her head back, cackling.

"Why, I do believe we startled them, Roronoa-san!" she said.

"You should have been completely unconscious," Igaram yelled, and Zoro stood.

"No swordsman worth their salt allows himself to be overwhelmed with drink, no matter the circumstance," he said.

Kelly casually poked his leg. "This is a nest of bounty hunters, Roronoa-san, didja know?" She offered cheerfully, almost like a little girl would. "They must lure pirates in and rob 'em blind. There's a lot of 'em here."

"About a hundred," Zoro confirmed, still smiling almost unpleasantly, but not before giving her an amused quirk of the lips. "It's no matter. I'll still take you on, _Baroque Works._"

The renewed shock on all of their faces set Kelly off again. She nearly fell off the roof, she was laughing so hard.

"WILL YOU STOP LAUGHING AT US?!" Igaram bellowed.

Kelly just pointed at him and _roared_. "Hair-curlers," she wheezed. "_Hair-curlers_!" It was all she could get out in between the bouts of convulsive giggling.

She heard a snort from Zoro as Igaram turned red with rage.

"_ANYWAY_," Vivi-hime said loudly, spots of color high in her cheeks. "How do you know that name?" she asked Zoro.

Kelly was summarily ignored. She thought about pretending to pout, but was still too giggly to even try it.

The green-haired man shrugged. "A while ago, you people tried to recruit me. I refused, of course. None of your members know anything about each other and only use codenames. Your Boss's location and identity are all top secret. A criminal organization that carries out its order to the letter, the bounty hunters feared by pirates across the seas, Baroque Works…Was it supposed to be a secret? I'm so sorry," Zoro said, his face practically evil in the light of the shining moon.

And it set Kelly off _yet again._

Because the look on Zoro's face was a goddamn replica of the U MAD BRO icon.

Oh Holy God, Roronoa Zoro was a _master troll_. It was the most beautiful thing that had ever happened to her _ever_.

"This is surprising…" Igaram said, ignoring Kelly with heroic effort. "But since you know our identity, we'll have to eliminate you. There will be two more gravestones for the Cactus Rocks tonight."

"Ohoho, really now?" Kelly said, still giggling, and she felt Zoro tense, just a little, and got ready to move.

"KILL THEM!" Igaram roared, and Kelly promptly leapt from the roof, stepping straight into _Soru_.

* * *

Kelly launched herself forward, smashing into the man who had a gun pointed down at Zoro. A quick spearhand to the throat, and he dropped to the ground next to the swordsman, giving him a start.

"You should pay more attention to your surroundings, boy-o, and stop mooning over your swords," Kelly chastised.

"Feh," Zoro sniffed at her before a group of gunmen came out of nowhere and he drew Yubashiri.

Kelly watched as he shot forward, the blade moving like a dream across the backs, bellies, legs, and arms of the bounty hunters. Zoro was a damn good swordsman.

Not great, no. Not yet.

But the potential was _there_, hiding deep under his skin, in the iron-strength of his spine, in the large, capable hands that wielded his swords like an extension of his own body. He had a soul-deep connection to the blades in his hands, one that would be forged even deeper and stronger as the years passed.

This was a swordsman that could forge a connection with whatever blade entered his hands.

It would be his mastering of that ability that would eventually lead to him becoming the strongest swordsman in the world.

Kelly knew, with utter and striking clarity, that it would be that ability that would lead to him to finally defeating Dracule Mihawk.

Three men armed with butcher knives charged at her. Without much thought, she disarmed one, stole his cleaver, and used it to slit the throats of the others. They dropped, gagging and choking, drowning in their own blood, and she trotted after Zoro, eyes alight with glee.

* * *

She didn't know if she'd be able to down someone like Miss Monday, who was built like a freaking tank, but much to Kelly's surprise, when her foot connected with the side of the big woman's head, she went flying into the wall.

Kelly landed in a crouch beside Zoro, who nodded.

"Not bad," he said, eying the crater the agent had made in the wall when she crashed into it.

"You think?" she asked, rubbing her chin and looking at the dazed agent critically. "I think I misjudged it. Should have nailed her closer to the crux of the neck and shoulder, knocked her out."

"There's always a time for second chances," Zoro said, rather philosophically, and Kelly gave him a strange look.

"Problem?" he asked, seeing her stare, and she shook her head.

"…It's nothing," she said with a slightly strained smile. He was different than the manga. It was odd. Really odd. It was so awesome to see him in action, but Kelly had to remember that Roronoa Zoro was not a character, he was a person, with the resultant depths and varying shades of gray that it was impossible for a cartoon character to have, no matter how much of a genius Oda was.

She shook herself as Miss Monday staggered out of the crater, bleeding from the mouth.

The dark-skinned woman pulled some brass knuckles onto her hands, and something in Kelly's head _roared_, snarling and eager for blood, and she had to remember that she doesn't want to kill Miss Monday, because she and Mr. 9 were going to have the cutest child EVAR, but it was hard as _fuck._

Kelly tried really hard not to remember that she hadn't stayed herself from killing humans in a very, very long time. It was easier than knocking them out, after all. And it made damn sure they wouldn't be back on their feet in an hour and trying again to kill her, rape her, or bleed her.

It was still a sting.

She stepped into Miss Monday's guard, and nailed the woman directly under the chin. It's a knockout blow, and Kelly can't help but think that _it would be so easy to slam my claws into her neck, rip and tear and be splattered with __**blood**_ before she managed to back away.

As Zoro quickly knocked out a bunch of bounty hunters that had tried to sneak up behind her, and the two of them walked to the edge of the roof to look down at the only three agents of Baroque Works still on their feet, Kelly felt a coldness enter her blood.

She had looked at Miss Monday like the woman _was prey._

A man called out from below, holding his bleeding arm, "That guy defeated Miss Monday in a test of strength!"

They looked at her with fear and no little shock, and despite everything, it made a part of Kelly feel darkly pleased.

That…

That was very _not good_.


	5. initium valebat (the start of adventure)

**On the Ocean Blue**

She was always just an ordinary girl…Until the day she wasn't. (OC-Insert)

**Author's Notes:** Chapter Five. Mein Gott, I never thought I'd get this far. O.O;

**Warnings:** OC, _lots of foul language_, bisexuality, all the sexualities, blood, mentions of torture, rape, minor character death, OOC-ness as I get used to characterizations of the characters, headcanons of the Straw Hats, implied pairings, a wee bit of mental disintegration, gender fluidity(?), abuse of italics, more will be added as needed.

* * *

**MORE WARNINGS**

**_PLEASE, READ THIS BEFORE CONTINUING:_** There's some ranting about gender roles and what in this chapter. I'll put this out here right now, Kelly is rather fluid about her own gender. Kelly is not someone who conforms to the expected type/mores of her biological gender, like her propensity for being a 'Seme' in her relationships (which will be explored in upcoming chapters). She identifies as both a man and a woman, _equally_, though she uses the pronouns 'she' and 'her' because that's what her own body is, and that's how she's grown up. She's comfortable acting as both a man and a woman, and compared to her multitudes of other problems, her gender really isn't an issue.

There are reasons for this gender fluidity, ones that I have built into the story and upcoming chapters. I do all things for a reason! It isn't so much an issue now (beyond some ranting that Kelly does), but it _will_ become a bigger deal in later chapters.

There are varying levels of gender identification all over this fanfic and all over multiple characters. Mostly original ones. Be prepared!

I have honestly never done characters that aren't purely cis-gendered in my stories before, but I've really wanted to, so let's see how it works.

If you find any of the above distasteful, 'wrong', etc, etc, etc, now would be the time to exit stage left.

* * *

**Author's Note: **_-…words…-_ indicates a flashback.

My God, I updated!

I had to stay in the hospital longer than I expected, and the Vicodin I took for pain knocked me straight down and out for days on end. My recovery time was extended beyond what I thought, because of this, and because my calcium levels were being stubborn and not going back to normal. Good Lord. I didn't think I was ever going to be conscious enough to do some actual writing.

Well, I'm back now, and I hope all of you enjoy this nice and long chapter as a reward for the wait. Thanks so much for reading and please, drop a review.

* * *

**Chapter Five:**

initium valebat (the start of adventure)

* * *

Igaram, Vivi, and Mr. 9 watched the both of them with wary eyes.

"I understand now…" Igaram said. "The Marines must have made a mistake on the wanted poster."

Mr. 9 seemed to agree. "It make more sense if he was the one worth 30,000,000 beri. He must be the real Captain."

"And that ponytailed man who defeated Miss Monday must be his co-captain," Vivi said. "I thought it was odd that a smiley-faced brat would be worth so much. Those two are obviously stronger."

_Well, all right then_, Kelly thought.

"Still, it's a disgrace," Igaram said coldly. "To have so many of us defeated by a single pirate swordsman and an effeminate man like him? The boss has entrusted us with this town. We'll be held responsible for this."

"Dude, you got a lot of balls telling me I look fucking effeminate, when you look like you've got fucking _hair curlers _on," Kelly said, feeling tendrils of anger in her belly.

What really got to her was the way Igaram had said the word _effeminate_. With a tinge of disgust and annoyance. As though he was saying, how dare this man with girly features be able to do the things he'd done.

And that, more than anything, more than the fact that it could, oh, _blow her cover_, pissed Kelly O. Magnus straight the fuck off.

Kelly remembered years of people telling her she wasn't a proper girl, a proper woman, and she remembered trying and trying and trying until she couldn't breathe anymore as she tried to become everything that society wanted a woman to be, no matter how wrong it fucking felt, and still got their shame and hate and awful, gritty catcalls and obscenities.

She remembered how nice it felt with Mikhail and Morgan, where she could wear bikinis or tuxedos or whatever the fuck she wanted and act however the fuck she wanted without any shame. She could wrestle with Mikhail and talk with him about girls without it getting weird, and Morgan could curl her hair and do her makeup lightly and they could talk about boys and that didn't feel wrong or weird either.

Kelly remembered all of this in the space of about two seconds, and the homesickness nearly took her down at the knees. She knew her parents, and her friends would be startled by her scaly bits, but they would accept her. They would accept her, _all of her_, the way they accepted that she was – on the inside – a man as much as she was a woman. And they would tell her that there was nothing wrong with her scaly bits, just like they'd done when she'd told them she wished she was a man, too.

She wished she was home. She wished she was _home_, where she didn't have to be a she or a he, but…

Just Kelly.

Oh, what did it even _matter_? Humans would always be stupid about what other humans were when they didn't follow the "norm", which she certainly never did. And considering the fact that she had _scales_, a little something like gender was the last thing she should be worrying about. "She" worked just well for Kelly, and wishing for more than that was just selfish.

She blinked, coming back to herself just as Igaram began to blow on his saxophone-gun.

…Her mind hadn't wandered off like that in years.

She gently leapt out of the way, landing on the ground, and promptly ducked down an alley. If she remembered the storyline correctly, Mr. 5 and Miss Valentine would be here soon.

Where had Zoro gone off to?

* * *

He was facing off with Vivi-hime and Mr. 9, the former of which had a short sword pointed at a sleeping Luffy's distended belly.

It was really odd that it was the sight of Luffy's inhumanly stretched stomach that was, without question, the strangest thing Kelly had ever seen in her entire life.

Kelly walked behind Igaram, and before he could start shooting, knocked him off the roof with a blow to the back that would guarantee that he wouldn't be a problem, but would allow him to fight against Mr. 5 and Miss Valentine's Day.

She smirked when she saw him crash into Mr. 9, Carue, and Vivi-hime, bowling the unprepared agents over.

"Well, that was pathetic," she told Zoro, who smirked. "Wanna go get drunk? The wine's pretty nice and the night is a fine one for drinking."

It was physically impossible for Roronoa Zoro to turn down alcohol, so his agreement came easily.

They clambered up the side of the building, both of them letting out pleased noises when they found several bottles of unbroken wine, and sat in a companionable silence until the Baroque Works officer agents arrived. They were probably the least weird looking out of all the Baroque Works agents, barring Miss Goldenweek, in Kelly's honest opinion.

"Captain of Arabasta's Royal Guard, Igaram, and Crown Princess Nefertari Vivi…by orders of the Boss, you are to be eliminated," Mr. 5 said.

"You know," Kelly said to Zoro, who watching the tableau with some interest as Vivi took off with the agents close behind, "Your captain's still down there. You should probably go get him."

"I probably should, shouldn't I?"

Kelly sniggered, and thought with some regret that it was a damned shame Roronoa Zoro was a human. He would have been a great friend.

They drank for a while before Kelly stood. "Well, I'm going to go flirt with the Princess. You all good here?" She asked, and got a nod from the swordsman.

"Have fun with that. I'm going to get Luffy and the others," Zoro said with a lazy yawn.

Swinging a bottle of wine, Kelly sauntered off in the direction Vivi had run.

* * *

She waited in a dark alley and let out a sharp whistle just as Vivi and Carue raced past. The duck came to a halt and both duck and blunette looked wildly around.

"'ey, Vivi-hime, I'd suggest you come over here before the Baroque Works agents get here," Kelly said, stepping from the shadows and waving nonchalantly.

She stopped, eying Kelly suspiciously. "Why should I, pirate?"

Kelly just sighed. "One, I ain't a pirate, just a long-term guest. Two, the pirates' navigator is just now negotiating with your boy Igaram to get you back home to Alabasta safe. Three, all _I_ want to do is flirt with you. I'm fair certain that's not what _Baroque Works_ wants."

There were a couple of seconds of silence, before Vivi and the duck quickly hurried over to her and hid in the shadows. Kelly helped the blue haired girl off Carue's back, and they both sat against the wall. Kelly noted with especial interest that Vivi was even more beautiful than the anime and manga version. Her light blue hair fell in waves around her face and her eyes were a simply delicious dark brown that reminded the Magus of melted semi-sweet bars of chocolate. Even with the dirt and blood smudging her face, she had a bearing about her shoulders Kelly assumed was the inborn aura of nobility it was said that royalty carried around them.

And unlike most nobility and those of royal blood, she didn't wear it arrogantly or pretend at it. She wore it easily, like most people wore their own clothes.

It was…_interesting_. Did her father have the same presence as his daughter?

No wonder the Baroque Works had discovered Vivi's and Igaram's identities so quickly. That presence and that extraordinary blue hair…

Kelly pulled a small handkerchief from her pocket and, cupping Vivi's face in her hand, began doggedly, but gently, wiping away as much of the grime and blood as she could. The princess immediately started squirming.

"H-hey, what're you doing?!" She demanded, trying to knock Kelly's hands away. Kelly simply ignored her protests until she had gotten off as much as she could, and then tossed the cloth away, and sat back, tilting the princess's face left and right, watching it carefully.

Then she smiled and nodded. "Much better. A princess as pretty as you shouldn't be covered by blood and dirt, Nefertari Vivi-hime of Arabasta."

Kelly could feel the fear trembling in the blue-haired woman's body, could practically _taste_ it. But it wasn't for herself, but rather for the man she'd been forced to leave behind at the mercy of the Baroque Works.

"Vivi, it's all right," Kelly said, tilting the girl's face so that she could look directly into her eyes. "It will be all right, I promise you."

_'__This is strange,'_ Kelly thought to herself. It had been a very long time since she'd given comfort to another human. But Vivi's eyes were warm and they'd lost some of that fear that had darkened them.

And when a smile quirked Vivi's full lips up, Kelly remembered with sudden, striking clarity-

_…__The sun was warm and the air carried the fresh hints of a summer in full swing, the music from the distant festival traveling even as far as the park. Her fingers tangled knots in the floor length skirt she wore, even as she looked at Morgan and Mikhail. _

_It was the first time Morgan had been out in public since she'd gotten home from the hospital._

_"__C-Can I sit here?" Kelly asked, her voice stilted and overly formal, as the dark-skinned woman and Cajun-Russian man watched her with hooded eyes._

_She wondered if her guilt was etched on every stitch of flesh she had, her guilt at not being able to save her friend from a fate worse than death, and she couldn't quite still the trembling in her fingertips._

_Then a warm, dusky hand took hers and pulled her down to the red-and-white checkered blanket, down by Morgan's side, and Kelly felt her heart leap into her throat._

_Morgan's dark brown eyes were bright with unshed tears, and her hand was tight around Kelly's._

_"__Of course you can," she said quietly, and it was only pride that kept Kelly from breaking down in public, from crying until she could no longer breathe, because finally the crushing guilt was beginning to crack and finally, finally she had her only friends in the world back with her._

_"__Th-Thank you…" she got out instead, and rested her head on Morgan's shoulder, feeling Mikhail's arms wrap around them both._

_And when Morgan smiled, it was like the rising of the sun…-_

_'__Well, hell,'_ Kelly thought, restraining the urge to sigh or break something. '_I'm a sentimental fool.'_

Then she froze, hearing the lightest tap on the roof of the building they sat against, and lunged forward, hauling Vivi into her arms. She kicked off the air and leapt out of the alley, Carue close behind, just as Miss Valentine crashed into the ground where they'd been sitting with her Kilo Press.

Kelly skidded to a halt, Vivi clinging tightly to her neck and straightened as Mr. 5 appeared before her.

He looked thoroughly annoyed. "Enough of this nonsenses," he said, and began…

…

…picking his nose.

…

…

…what.

Kelly raised an eyebrow as she sat Vivi on her feet again by her duck.

"I'm not one to judge another man's activities," Kelly drawled, putting a hand on her hip, "But don't you think that's not something you should be doing, much less in public? Have some _shame_, man."

He sneered at her as he pulled his finger from his nose and began rolling whatever he'd found between his thumb and forefinger. "Oh, I'm going to enjoy this."

It felt like she was forgetting something. She knew this guy had Devil Fruit Powers, but which ones? Hm…

"Nose Fancy Cannon!" The agent yelled and flicked the boogers at her, just as Vivi grabbed her hand.

There was the instinctual jerk of surprise and rage (_how dare she touch me!_) but it vanished when Vivi said, "Mr. Kenpo, he's a bombman! He can make any part of himself explode!"

…Oh, so that's what he did.

She turned back to see the speck of (highly explosive) boogers hurtling at them and restrained the urge to facepalm. _Now_ she remembered.

This was going to _hurt_-

Suddenly there was a green blur in front of them, and the air and ground exploded on either side of them for several yards back, the tortured ground screaming under the assault.

"Mr. Bushido!" Vivi cried out.

Kelly looked on either side and felt both eyebrows raise in involuntary appreciation. "Holy frijoles, that's some powerful boogers," she said with a snort of laughter.

"I had to cut_ snot_!" Zoro whined, and Kelly cackled.

"Aw, poor thing. Is your sword soiled forevermore?" She mocked.

The swordsman glared at her. "Oh shut up, girly-man."

A vein pulsed in her cheek. "Ex_cuse _me?"

He just smirked. "You heard me, bastard."

"Why are you so persistent?" Vivi snapped, interrupting the argument. She pulled out one of her Peacock Slashers out and started twirling it. Kelly quickly put a hand out to stop her.

"Vivi-hime, stop. He's here to help you…right? You _are_ here to save her, right?" Kelly asked the green-haired swordsman, who nodded.

"Aren't you the swordsman who took down all of those bounty hunters in town?" Miss Valentine asked. "Why would you suddenly start protecting the Arabastan princess?"

Zoro shrugged. "I have my reasons."

"No matter," Mr. 5 said, picking his nose _yet again_. "You're standing in our way, so that means you're an obstacle. Our enemy."

"I FOUND YOU!"

Kelly felt her smile stretch to Joker-esque proportions as they all turned to see a horribly bloated Luffy a short distance away, face red and nose puffing like an angered bull.

She turned back to Vivi and grinned. "Come on love, let's get you out of the danger zone, shall we?" She began herding the Princess back as Luffy charged.

"They're, _they're insane_!" Vivi said, her face a combination of outright shock and adorable confusion as the two pirates promptly began beating the ever loving shit out of each other.

"Yeah, probably, but they're your best hope of getting back to Arabasta in one piece," Kelly said, sitting on some crates stacked against a building a short while away from the brawl. She yawned.

"Hey, Vivi-hime, tell me about your homeland." It took a bit of doing, but soon Kelly had drawn the girl's attention away from the fight, peppering her with questions until she smiled again and began to answer, as they waited for Nami to arrive and put a stop to the brawl.

* * *

**DATE: **_Later that day… May 30__th_

**MY LOCATION: **_My room_

**PLACE:** _Merry Go_

_It's been a while since my last entry. Everything went as it should have at Whisky Peak. Nami interrupted the battle between Zoro and Luffy, who thought that Zoro had gotten pissed off at the bounty hunters because they didn't have his favorite food._

_(Dear Lord, but that boy's a fucking dumbass. At least that's one thing the anime and manga got perfectly right.)_

_Nami tried to get a billion beri out of Vivi in return for taking her to Arabasta, but of course Vivi turned her down._

_"__Eh? But you're a princess, aren't you? It's just a measly billion," Nami said._

_"__Ah, Nami-chan, Arabasta's about to erupt into a civil war, they __**can't**__ afford it," I said and got everyone's attention, including Vivi's._

_"__How do you know that?" Vivi asked. After all, it hadn't been one of the things we'd talked about._

_Perhaps I should feel bad about how easily the lie leapt to my lips, but I didn't feel anything at all as I answered the question and sidestepped, putting the attention back on Vivi._

_"__Hey, I read about it back in Loguetown, about how the rebel army's growing stronger day by day. It wasn't hard to put the dots together. And besides, why else would a princess be working with a group of bounty hunters? I take it that Baroque Works has something or else to do with the troubles your country is having, am I right?"_

_Vivi sighed. "You're correct." She went on to explain about her country and the troubles it had been experiencing, coupled with Baroque Works involvement, until she accidentally revealed the BW's Boss's identity. The otter and the vulture – the Unluckies, I think they were called – heard, Nami flipped out, and then the animals drew pictures of Nami, Luffy, and Zoro._

_I was sitting in the shadows of a building, out of sight, and they didn't manage to get a close look at me. Which is good._

_Everything else went as it should. Igaram looked fucking weird as hell in his disguise, got blown up by Miss All-Sunday (ROBIN! KYAAAA), and then we ran like hell back for the ship, Luffy dragging a thoroughly confused Sanji and Usopp all the way._

_I went and hid in my room, submitted to a scolding from Gin (who of course was worried out of his wits), snuggled with Shere Khan, and finally sat back to write this entry. I don't really want Miss All-Sunday to see me, no matter how cool she is (or how awesome the fact is that it's NICO MOTHERFUCKING ROBIN). If anyone would know of the legends of the Magi, or be able to see that I'm not human and not biologically male, it would be her. And besides, Miss All-Sunday isn't Nico Robin, not really. She hasn't yet become the stoic archaeologist/historian of the Straw Hats, the dark, enigmatic, but treasured nakama of these pirates. She hasn't yet become the woman they would fight the world for._

_I don't want Miss All-Sunday to see me, because Miss All-Sunday is the type of woman who would sell me into slavery (or to the World Government) in a heartbeat. If I had my way, I would hide on this ship until the Arabasta was just a memory of the past, and I wouldn't have to be anywhere near the dogs of the WG, but I…_

_I don't want them to think ill of me. I want them to continue to think of me as a flirtatious, powerful guy always ready with an easy smile and a helping hand, a guy who's ultimately worthy of their respect. I don't want them to see how fucked up I really am, how much blood I have on my hands, and how little I really give a shit about Arabasta's civil war. _

_Because I don't, not really._

_I don't see any of them as real, to be perfectly honest. And that's a little terrifying to think about. I have to keep constantly reminding myself that these are people, with thoughts and hopes and dreams and they're not just fucking characters in a cartoon anymore. If they die or get hurt, it's not going to go away in a couple minutes of brightly colored pixels or a flick of the page._

_Why is it that the only things that seem real to me are my cats, my magic and the Daemons? Not even my scales, my martial arts seem real._

_It's so damned disconcerting. Gods, I can't wait to get back home, to be in a place where everything makes some notion of fucking sense, and where the people are actually people to me._

_I feel like I'm going insane, like my feet are floating several inches off the ground and no matter what I do I can't make them go back down._

_…_

_…_

_…_

_I want to feel real again. That's all I want. And I can't do that here._

_I'm not going to be able to stay with these guys for very long. Before Skypiea, __**definitely **__before Enies Lobby, I'll have to leave. Maybe I'll stick around for Arabasta. I can see about getting a ship away there. If I help her country, Vivi will help me get a ship, or at least get me __**on**__ a ship. I'll need to make sure she becomes my 'friend' and trusts me, if that's going to happen._

_I can do that easily. _

_After all, it's not like I'm not halfway to seducing her already, as things stand._

_~KL_

* * *

**Meanwhile, in the New World…**

The island hummed as its residents came alive for a brand new day, the sun crimson red on the horizon, the waters surrounding the island a gorgeous, crystalline blue. Sea Kings swam in idle circles in the deeper pockets of water near land, while schools of fish and other aquatic life darted in and out of the dark pink coral reefs that formed a hidden barrier around the island.

In the middle of the island lay a large, expansive tropical jungle, erupting with life, surrounded by a circle of pristine white beach. The jungle thrummed with noise, mostly the sounds of the wild fauna that called it home, but the closer one got to the middle of the jungle, one could hear new sounds start to join the animals.

Humans. Voices. Shouting, yelling, crying, singing, laughing, praying.

An immense tree lay in the center of the jungle, spanning several hundred meters in height and still more in diameter. In its branches lay a village, with walkways and bridges leaping from house to house, from shop to shop, from building to building, climbing higher and higher into the tree. Men and women and children of all ages, sizes, and races, wandered about the sturdy wooden walkways, starting their day with yawns and yells, with laughs and smiles, just as any village anywhere in the world did.

But the people here were a bit…mm, a bit _different_ than most humans were.

A light-skinned man dressed in an oversized blue tanktop and baggy grey sweats emerged from one of the huts with a yawn, stretching his long arms high above his head.

"Gods, it's too fucking early for this _shit_," the dark eyed man said, combing back his riotous mane of blond hair into a low ponytail.

A satchel flew from the open doorway to whack him in the back of his head.

"Stop bitching and get to stepping, you dumbass," a woman's voice said from within the hut, husky from sleep. "I don't have to be up for another hour, and I don't want to waste it listen to you bitch about having to deal with your sugar mama."

"May the Gods preserve me, you naggy old hag, the Lord's not my damn-" He leapt out of the way as a brick crashed through the air where he'd just been standing, and swore. "All right, I'm fucking leaving!"

He took off down one of the walkways, swearing all the way.

As he passed by shops, buildings, and the other villagers, he was greeted with the hawking cries of the shopkeepers, teasing smiles and suggestions that turned his ears the color of a tomato, and calls from his friends and acquaintances that he returned with a nonchalant wave.

On the outside of his arms, extending upwards until they vanished under the fabric of his shirt, were burnished red scales, gleaming like chips of ruby in the sun's morning blaze of light. Many of the people here had scales much like him, in every color of the rainbow, along with a host of other oddities that one didn't often see on a human's body, things like horns and wings and fur and everything in between.

"Hey, _wassup_?"

As his back was to the owner of the voice, the man permitted himself a tiny sigh before he turned to the woman sitting on the railing.

She was easily six feet tall, sinuous and layered with ropey muscles, her skin darkly tanned from hours spent in the sun, her scalp shaved clean. All she wore was her breast binders and a pair of off-white pants embroidered with daisies.

"Hello Saffron," he said, a tinge of long-suffering annoyance and quiet amusement in his voice.

"Kekekekeke…going to go see yo' pimp, Ormr?" the woman asked, dark blue eyes glittering with amusement.

"Kiss my ass, Saffron," the blond haired man growled. "She ain't my damn pimp, and talking like that about our Lord is a fucking insult-"

Saffron giggled and held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. "Kidding, kidding! Don't take my head off, Ormr, you know I don't mean it."

He growled. "You know I don't fucking like the way people talk about us."

She stood from her crouch, her enormous, silver bat-wings folding back so she could step onto the walkway by his side.

"Considerin' who she is and considerin' who _you_ are, I would say that's inevitable, innit?" Saffron said with a shrug, wrapping a companionable arm around his shoulders.

He sighed. "It's still irritating."

"Yeah, well, the price of celebrity 'nd all…" Saffron yawned. "Nah, but for real, did the Lord call you there for a reason you feel like sharing?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. But she's watching over some kids she brought from another world, and she's pretty nervous about it and all."

"Wants you for moral support?"

He shrugged again. "I'd assume…I'm pretty sure they're of her blood, though."

Saffron blinked. "…What, _seriously_? No wonder she's nervous then, if the kids came from her."

"That's not all… Saffron, one of them is a _sanguinem quatuor_."

The winged woman stopped dead. He sighed, and leaned against the rope railing.

"…_Holy shit,"_ she finally managed to say. "My God, are you _joking_?!"

He shook his head. "No, I'm not. You know where our Lord came from, and who her previous consort was. And the ones before that."

"_Goddamn_, no wonder she's nervous about this. If she missteps, it could mean igniting a war between the Gods," Saffron said softly, running a hand over her bald dome. "She finally did it. Holy shit, she finally created a _four-blood_? Those kids already having targets on their backs, without putting something like that on one of them...That poor _quatuor_ will be hunted across the goddamned world, by the Gods. …I'll keep quiet about this, Ormr. Tell the Lord I wish her the luck of the devil. She'll need it for something like this…"

He nodded and she quickly pecked him on the cheek. "Best of luck to you, too, darlin'," she said, her wings spreading open.

"Thank you, Saffron."

As the woman took off, Ormr continued on his way to the house perched in the very top of the tree.

* * *

_Voices sang in hundreds of languages, as They felt the very fabric of time and space curl and twist under Their fingers, as They plucked the strings of reality as one might a harp, sending ripples across Their mind like a stone dropped in a still pond, as seven faces appeared before Their vision, and Their heart ached with love._

_They had seen many fail, and had Themselves failed so many others, but They could not, would not fail these._

_"__Good luck, my little ones," They said. _

The first, sitting in a small room on a pirate's ship.

The second, pulled from snow-white waters by winged men and women.

The third, running from monsters towards a castle far in the distance.

The fourth, dragged before a white-robed council and condemned to a life of slavery.

The fifth, curled in the immense limbs of a tree that spewed a thickly green gas.

The sixth, trapped in the dungeon of a castle deep in a sea that could be tamed by no man.

The seventh, chained to the side of a man dressed in pink feathers and a cold smile.

_The children now rested firmly in the hands of Fate itself. And Fate, as They well knew, was a cruel mistress indeed._


	6. A Balloon in a Perfectly Windy Sky

**Title:** On the Ocean Blue

**Written By: **NikoArtagnan

**Genre:** Fantasy/Friendship/Adventure

**Rating: **T, will eventually go to M

**Summary: **_She was always just an ordinary girl…Until the day she wasn't. (OC-Insert)_

**Warnings:** OC, lots of foul language, bisexuality, all the sexualities, blood, mentions of torture, implied pairings, a wee bit of mental disintegration, gender fluidity(?), **abuse of italics**, abuse of flashbacks, breaking gender norms one at a time, Kelly does not deal with grief (or feelings in general) very well, Kelly is also a manipulative, perverted, bitch of sadist, poor Sanji, My Characters Have Major Issues™. More will be added as needed.

**Author's Notes:** Chapter Six…Lord Christ, I finally finished it!

Please, enjoy the sixth chapter of _On the Ocean Blue_, and drop a review, if you can. The more reviews you send my way, the faster I'll get these chapters out! *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge* /brick'd

The chapter name comes from song by Tori Amos, it's called "Cruel" and it's fabulous…I decided to give the beginnings of my stories a new format, just to make things a little easier on the eyes.

* * *

**A reply to a review from** **_Savage Kill_**:

Essentially, in my story, sea snakes (a real animal) are much like fishmen, only they're humanoid snakes capable of breathing under water. Unlike fishmen, they only really 'manifest' in terms of scales and what not. They're highly venomous, have a lot of advantages (just like fishmen) over humans, but their scales are prized across the world for medicines and jewelry, their hair for a material softer than silk, and a bunch of other things that make them a black market salesman's biggest wet dream.

I fell in love with the idea of a sea snake character after I read _Hanley_, by NibelungVelocity on . It's a _really_ damn good OC story, though I'm fairly certain it's a dead fic *sighs in regret*. It's a part of where I got my inspiration for Kelly and my story.

I hope that answers your question!

* * *

**Chapter Six:**

A Balloon in a Perfectly Windy Sky

* * *

_-…Her world is pain. Pure, unrelenting, agony. There is a disgustingly wet sound each time the whip lands, cracking against the ground-meat flesh of her back and making the rest of her involuntarily convulse. Tiny shudders continuously wrack her limbs, and there's blood everywhere._

_Hands reach from the crowd, groping, desperate to reach the blood pooling on the wooden planks below her knees. Voices are frenzied, loud, petulant, moaning a terrifying and sickening mantra to the men and women who carefully, methodically, ceremoniously, bring each whip down on her shoulders, set it aside, and pick up another._

_"__Feed us, feed us, feed us, feed us," they cry._

_Animalistic roars of rage and heartbreak come from a cage at the peripheral of her vision._

_The world and all its colors are starting to turn a dismal gray, like the ending of some TV show, but's not really a TV show that's ending, it's her own damned life, and oh God, she's going to die. She's going to die, and these bastards will kill Gin and Shere._

_She doesn't want to die, not after she's fought so hard and for so long to live. She wants to go home, to her family. But she's not going to get that chance, because she is dying._

_As her vision narrows, there's a scream._

_Her head struggles to rise as panic jolts new life through her veins._

_A woman stands just beyond the crowd, chest heaving, face slicked with sweat. She's beautiful, even with the fear darkening her sapphire-blue eyes, and the heat of the sun frizzing her waist-length blonde hair._

_"__Stop this!" she cries when she catches her breath. There are tears filming her eyes._

_Oh God, what is she _doing_? The panic is raw-red and clawing its way out of her belly through her bloody throat._

_"__This isn't right! She doesn't deserve to die just so we can have a prosperous harvest. She's done so much for all of us. We don't need quarts of blood when one drop of it keeps our fields healthy for years! We don't need to drain her dry when she willingly uses her magic to keep pirates, bandits, sickness, and wild animals away from us! She's saved so many of us, and this is how we repay her?!"_

_There is silence._

_"__Please, Daddy…I love her," the woman whispers._

_There is more silence, several thrumming, tension-filled seconds that feel like hours. Then the man behind her sighs and says three words that send an ice-cold spike of fear through her spine._

_"__She is __**forsaken**__."_

_Terror blanches the blonde-haired woman's face to a sickly snow-white. The crowd turns, eyes alight with a deep, awful hunger._

_Somehow, her tortured throat finds the air to scream._

_"__MINA!"_

_And the crowd leaps forwards as one as the blonde turns to flee…-_

* * *

Consciousness came swiftly, like a baseball bat smashed into her sternum, and was just as unwelcome. She shot upright, chest heaving, back aching with the vestiges of the nightmare and remembered pain.

There was a burning in her chest, and ache in the space behind her jaw, and horrible stinging in her eyes. She fucking _hurt_. She hurt _all over_.

The pain forced a tiny sob from her throat, and she felt arms curl around her waist, pulling her flush against a lean, pale body, even as a warm body curled around her back.

"Oh, _Mistress_…" Gin whispered, his human hands stroking through her unbound hair.

"We have you, Mama," the furry body spooning her aching back whispered, Shere Khan's voice light and sleepy, but soft with love.

Kelly, overcome with grief and pain, buried her face in Gin's neck and wept silently.

They made a strange picture, the three of them tangled together on a bed that barely fit one adult and two cats, the long-limbed, black haired and silver-eyed man, the sweat-soaked woman crying into his shoulder like a baby, and the full-grown tiger resting against her back.

Through the porthole on the far wall, the moon shone like it was burning.

* * *

**DATE:**

**MY LOCATION:**

**PLACE:**

_Mina, Mina, Mina, Mina, Mina, Mina, Mina._

_I miss you so much._

_I love you._

(At the bottom of the page, there is an intricate ink drawing of a young woman reclining on a bed, smiling at the viewer, her curvaceous body covered only by a light sheet. She is looking at the viewer with lustrous, hooded eyes, her light hair spilling over her naked shoulders.

The drawing is spotted and smudged with tears.)

* * *

The sky was a perfect robin's egg blue, with nary a cloud to be seen for miles. The sun's blazing warmth was cut by the wonderful, sea-salted breeze that was a gift from the ocean. The ocean itself was a pristine sheet of unbroken sapphire for miles. It was a goddamn gorgeous day.

Kelly yawned, resting back against the ropes attaching to the white railing. She was sitting on the upper deck (or whatever it was called. Ship vernacular still eluded her grasp like a particularly ornery greased pig), watching as Vivi explained the nature of the ocean surrounding Reverse Mountain to Luffy and Zoro.

"This is the most difficult sea in all of the world to navigate," Vivi said solemnly. "We must be on our guard at all times."

"Hey, dumbasses! Come have a round of my Special Drink!" Sanji called out. Luffy leapt to the lower deck with a shriek of delight, Zoro close on his heels.

Vivi watched them with a scowl knotting a line between her eyebrows, getting progressively more and more annoyed as the boys chattered about fishing lines, then started cheering Carue on as he slurped down several glasses of the blue-green drink.

The door behind Vivi opened, and Nami stepped out, carrying two gracefully designed glasses of the beverage. It was obvious that these two glasses Sanji prepared especially for the women, because Kelly had never before seen such a high level of design go into two drinks.

"How can they be so calm?!" Vivi blurted, smacking a hand against the railing as she looked down at the laughing boys.

"Just let them be. If a storm comes, they know what to do," Nami said with a smile, holding a glass out to the blue-haired woman. "They don't want to die, either."

"I suppose…" Vivi sighed. "But it doesn't look like they're even trying to be alert…"

Kelly looked down at the boys as they cackled over Carue, flailing on his back with a very obvious brain-freeze headache. '_Dumbass bird_,' Kelly thought with affection.

Carue had taken to Kelly very quickly and it was a mutual sort of thing, which had surprised pretty much everyone on the ship. Kelly really didn't see what was so confusing about it. She liked animals. Hadn't that been made unequivocally clear by the way she doted on Shere Khan and Gin?

But then again, these were the morons who had no earthly clue she was a woman, so perhaps it wasn't that surprising they couldn't see it.

(-…_And after all, they didn't know that it was the monkeys that came to her aid when she was trapped in a castle where the residents moaned with hunger as her blood dripped to the floor, their faces twisting in ways no human's ever could, or that it was the sparrows that brought her the slavers' keys as she sat shaking in a cage two times too small, or that it was the whale sharks that bore her tired, aching body to the next island while monsters stalked her every movement, or that it was the tigers who became the only thing close to a family she had in this fucked up world. It was the animals who lived for her, protected her, _died_ for her, and she loved them as much as they loved her…-_)

Kelly looked at Vivi and Nami and realized that Sanji hadn't given one of the drinks to her. She looked down and realized the tray was empty beside him.

Then the blond man looked up at her and fucking _smirked_, that little _shit_, and the amusement, arousal, and grief_-…Mina's little smile was touched at the edges with mischievous glee and mockery, as Kelly flailed and swore and tried to find an article of clothing that hadn't been turned all pink and frilly…-_that tore through her was like a firestorm, searing through her veins before she could stamp it down and out.

_'__That little fucker,'_ Kelly thought, fighting the urge to growl. She had been feeling thirsty for a while, and had taken it for granted that she too would get a glass of that delicious looking beverage.

_'__Is that the sort of game you wanna play, boy-o? Oh, bring it the fuck on.'_ If anyone could see the way Kelly was smiling in her own head, it would have sent them running screaming in the opposite direction, perhaps to the nearest psychiatrist or mental health expert. There was a predatory sort of anticipation in her veins, one that both surprised her and didn't, all at the same time. To certain challenges, this had always been her default state.

Everything from poker to how to prepare pancakes (courtesy of Dad) to fighting for her life and learning how to skim across the waves with the magic rumbling in her veins, Kelly took to with a single-minded intensity that was just about the most contradictory thing in her entire personality. Things she could truly find a passion for, things she liked, people she liked, she fought for _ferociously_.

Usually, when someone threw down the gauntlet in front of her, it was child's play to ignore it or to redirect it somewhere else. She felt easiest with a smile and laugh, leaning back and letting the wind run through her hair, listening to the world pass her by and enjoying it as much as she possibly could.

But sometimes she couldn't. Sometimes things wouldn't let her be content. Sometimes things just _got to her_.

And that little smirk of Sanji's got to her in ways she didn't want to touch with a ten-foot-pole.

She caught sight of Vivi taking a long drink from her glass and a thoroughly awful idea spawned in her head like a rabid zombie plot bunny. She nearly crowed with laughter.

"Hey, cook-san, didn't you bring me one of your drinks?" She called to the blond man, managing to interject a note of a pout in her voice. She saw Nami raise an eyebrow at the side of her vision – perhaps she should have been worried how well that girl knew her, but she could do that later. "You're such a meanie," she all but whined, and blond man smirked at her again.

"You want some cheese with that whine, shithead?" he asked, standing up from his crouch in one slow, smooth movement that made something inside her tighten with anticipation.

"Tsk, so mean…oh well. I do want to try it, though, it looks delicious. But if you're going to hoard it I guess I'll have to find another way." She stuck her tongue in her cheek. "Oh, Vivi-chan!" She said turning to the princess just as she took another drink. She stepped in close, plucking the empty glass from her fingers and sitting it on the railing.

As she cupped the princess's neck in her hand and leaned in, she saw Nami's eyes go huge with shock, and she kissed Vivi on the lips.

Kelly knew how to kiss and she knew how to kiss very well. Back home, she'd been the sort of girl who researched the subject, practiced as often as she could with whomever she could convince to do it, wash, rinse, repeat. She still had no honest clue why on earth she did, as she had never been too fond of people in general, but it was a fairly useful skill, to be able to kiss someone into wide-eyed, trembly-legged silence.

Mina had stared at her for at least five minutes, eyes blown huge with shock and arousal after they'd parted from their first kiss, just like Vivi was doing right now, and it was a testament to Kelly's herculean self-control that she didn't let a single emotion but quiet amusement show on her face.

A sound that vaguely resembled a teapot boiling over erupted from behind her, and Kelly felt that little demon inside her mind cackle like a fucking lunatic as she turned, placing a firm hand on the small of Vivi's back to keep her from toppling over.

Luffy was laughing his ass off, Usopp's eyes were as big as Vivi's, Nami was giggling helplessly, Zoro was chuckling into his drink, Carue looked confused, and Sanji…

Sanji's face had reached a level of fuchsia that Kelly had no idea humans were even capable of turning until now.

"My compliments to the chef," she said with an utterly unashamed smirk, flicking her tongue out over her lips, tasting the remnants of the drink (blueberry, kiwi, and some sort of sweet alcohol), and the strawberry chapstick Vivi used. It mingled together quite well on her tongue.

"P-p-p-p-p-p-_pervert! Shitty perverted bastard!_" Sanji shrieked so fast the words tripped over one another. It was the most amusing thing she had been able to witness in a very, very long time.

"What's wrong, cook-san?" She asked, layering her voice in enough innocence to tranquilize a bull elephant. "I just wanted a taste of your Special Drink, after all, since you were going to be greedy about things."

She nudged Vivi to the side just in time to dodge the shining loafer-clad foot that tried to knock her head off. She laughed, a low, easy sound, and something inside her eased up, just a little.

"Really, cook-san!" She protested, batting aside the kicks she couldn't slip-slide around with a silent _Kami-e_. "This is a little _excessive_, don't you think?"

"How dare you act so familiarly to a princess!" he bellowed at her.

His face was a thing of utter beauty. The ugly fuchsia had faded, replaced with spots of bright red high in his cheekbones and a look of intense fury in his eyes that did a better job of knocking the air from her lungs than any of his kicks could. A vein pulsed in the gleaming column of white that was his neck, and she wondered how big his eyes would get if she stepped in and bit hard enough to bruise that perfect white skin.

His lips were furrowed, _pursed_, his teeth gritted, and she wondered vaguely how it would feel to kiss those lips, what their taste would be. How she could etch her own furrows into his brow, make him snarl and _moan_ with pain and fear, oh it was so easy to imagine…

She was about ready to step into his guard and return some blows of her own – just to see the way his face would contort when she smashed her fist into his solar plexus – when Nami screamed "What the hell is that?!" and the world went dark.

They all looked up just in time to see the enormous dolphin go flying overhead. It was easily a couple hundred times bigger than the regular-sized version, and the ship promptly exploded into action.

Kelly thought it was rather cute, to be honest. After all, she'd swum with _Sea Kings_, an overgrown dolphin didn't bug her too much.

Even as she let Nami and Luffy's orders flow over her ears, following them on autopilot, she watched Sanji out of the corner of her eye, finally beginning to recognize that awful thing snarling in her chest, the thing that wanted to bend the blond cook in all directions to see what would make him break. It was a volatile mixture of pitch-black hate and…and something else. Something that she instinctively shied away from as though it were a rabid zombie clown, mentally drop-kicking it into a lock-box in the very far regions of her mind.

She had enough problems as it was without having to think exactly why she wanted to bend Sanji over a table and fuck him senseless.

Well, she always did, but now it was even more so.

…

…God damn it there was something _wrong_ with her.

* * *

"So this is Little Garden…" Kelly said, looking around, leaning back against the railing, her arms folded over her chest. "A wee bit of false advertising, don't you think?" she asked Nami with a chuckle.

The orange-haired woman sighed. "It's not as cute as its name at all," she agreed, looking around at the jungle surrounding them on either side.

Unlike the others, Kelly knew exactly what lived here, so she wasn't nearly as shocked at the colossal size of their surroundings.

It was a tropical forest, wild and lush, bursting with colorful flora and the sounds of fauna, steamy and hot and increasingly humid, but supersized. The trees were stories high above their heads, and the plants she could see were enormous as well – insanely colored flowers bigger in width that she was tall, vines bigger than her body snaking around the trunks of trees, thickly dense grass that rose waist high in several places.

The noise was _immense_, the jungle practically bursting at the seams with roars, howls, animal's cries of every sound and pitch, the crunch of plants underneath paw and foot, the rustling of wind through the dense trees, and it buffeted Kelly's senses from all sides until she dimmed her hearing to manageable levels.

Gin had his paws over his ears, curled around her shoulders, and Shere Khan was tucked into the front pocket of Kelly's oversized jacket, leaving only her head peeking out.

"This is unexplored t-territory," Usopp wibbled, his knees shaking. "An unexplored jungle!"

Kelly rolled her eyes. Cowardly fool.

"We must be careful," Vivi said. "I'm still worried about what Miss All-Sunday said…"

"Does this mean there's going to be monsters?!" Usopp cried.

"Who cares?" Luffy called out, eyes agog as he stared at the jungle around them.

"W-Well, let's just go to the next island and not worry about this one, then."

"Dude, we gotta let the Log Pose lock into this island before we go anywhere," Kelly said with a yawn.

"We also need to stock up on provisions," Sanji said. "We didn't get a chance to stock up at the last town."

Kelly yawned again – she certainly hadn't had what you could call a restful night - and hoisted herself up onto the railing, swinging her cargo pant clad legs out over the river.

"Oi, Gin," she said in a voice pitched too low for any of the humans to hear. "You doing all right?" She rubbed the space between the cat's ears and he sighed.

"I'm fine, Mistress," he said in an equally soft voice. "This place gives me a wee bit of a headache."

"I know what you mean," Kelly said wryly. "A wee bit crowded, wouldn't you say?" She herself greatly preferred the wide open spaces of the ocean, where there was just clear blue water for miles above, below and around her.

"_Sugei_," Shere whispered from the belly pocket. "Mama, it's just like home!"

It did indeed look a lot like Toratega Island, and for a brief moment Kelly felt a pang in her heart. Toratega had become the closest thing to a home and it had been the one place she had always been safe from humans or Daemons.

Well, there had been Aratuck, but she hadn't exactly been safe there, now had she?

She closed her eyes as her back spasmed with pain, blocking everything else out until she could breathe normally again.

She turned around when Nami cried "What is that?!"

Diving towards Sanji's back was an enormous dinosaur bird, with blue-green feathers, a purple crest, tennis-racket size claws, and at least a thirty foot wingspan. Sanji had obviously heard the beating of wings, and didn't bother to turn around.

"It's just some ordinary bird, Nami-san," he said with a cheerful smile. "And this is just an ordinary jungle. Nothing to worry about."

"Yo, Blondey, you might wanna try telling the bird that," Kelly said, and pointed at the bird when he gave her a confused look. Nami and Usopp ran away, screaming, as the enormous thing got closer.

"Er, wha-" Sanji began, turning around. He dropped to the deck just in time, cursing, and the bird zoomed over his head with a hair-splitting, blood-curdling shriek. Feathers sprayed everywhere.

"What the HELL was that, you SHITTY BIRD?!" The blonde man bellowed, while Kelly threw her head back and roared with laughter. He turned on her, still growling, when a thunderous explosion rocked the ship, and a foul-smelling dust darkened parts of the sky.

"That's nothing you hear in a normal jungle," Nami whispered.

"That's a volcano!" Usopp yelled, well on his way to a mental breakdown by the looks of it.

There was a fearsome roar from the right side of the river, and a simply enormous tiger emerged from the treeline, yellow-green eyes glowing with what Kelly could tell was pain and encroaching death, but what Nami and Usopp must have assumed was hunger, because immediately both navigator and sniper were at either side of her, clinging and trembling in fright.

She rolled her eyes and patted them both on the head.

"Nami-san, you can hold onto me if the tiger frightens-"

"No."

"…_Heh_."

"WHAT WAS THAT, YOU PERVERTED SCOUNDREL-"

It followed their ship's path for a few minutes, before the stink of death enveloped it completely, and Kelly quickly pushed Shere's head back into the pocket with a sharp, mental order as the tiger collapsed, the coppery-sweet stink of blood making the Magus grind her teeth.

Nami ran back to the other railing closest to where the tiger had dropped, and stared at it.

"What, what happened to it? This isn't normal. How can the King of the Jungle collapse in a puddle of its own blood?" she asked.

"Then it's decided!" Usopp said. "We won't be stopping on this island, let's just go to the next one."

"We'll just sit here and wait until the Log Pose to set before we continue," Nami said, sweat beading her brow.

"Yes!"

"Then we'll get out of here as fast as possible."

"Yes!"

Kelly quickly ducked back inside to make a quick change. She wasn't going to pass up the chance to explore Little Garden, but she would need something a little bit more weather appropriate.

* * *

Her outfit was still pretty much the same. She wore an oversized, hooded, thigh-length jacket and khaki cargo pants, but her jacket was in a softer shade of blue and much lighter. Underneath she wore her usual assortment of protective gear – her breast binders and biker shorts (spelled so she could leave them on for long periods without suffering from rashes or deformation), the neck-to-ankle length wet-suit/body armor, and over that she wore a long-sleeved white turtleneck that cut off just below her breasts, that could be pulled up over her mouth and also served as a face-mask.

Everything was spelled within an inch of its life – magical symbols woven into the very fabric of the clothing in some cases – to allow for air flow, ease of movement, comfort, and to hide the fact that she was indeed a woman.

It was annoying, but extremely necessary, as Kelly had found out in the past years on the run.

"So, you're going?" Gin asked as he leapt onto her shoulders again.

"Of course. Shere-chan, do you want to come?" She asked the cat on the bed.

The tigress shot up. "I can _come_?" She asked excitedly, and Kelly sighed.

"Of course you can come, sweetheart," she said, and the tigress began bouncing around, giggling, and Kelly had to bite her lip and scoop the tigress up into her arms before she had a heart attack from the influx of _utter cute_.

Gin laughed as Shere reached up and lightly butted her face against his, a gesture he readily returned.

Kelly smiled and buried her face in Shere's fur, breathing steadily, feeling warm and loved and loving in return. The bond between Magus and Familiar(s) was perhaps the one good thing she'd gotten out of everything. It was the concrete, unshaking, bone-marrow-deep knowledge that she had others in this big, cold, lonely world who loved her, would die for her, and better yet, would _live_ for her.

It had gotten her through more than one cold and lonely night where her back was pressed to the wall or tree or whatever surface of whatever place she'd been hiding, praying for the sun to rise so she could make a break for the ocean and get to safety.

"I love you guys, you know that?" She whispered, tucking Shere into the belly pocket of her jacket.

Gin's purr rumbled through her spine, and Shere's through her belly, and all was right in her world.

"_Yosh_," she said, cracking her knuckles. "Let's go explore this fucking prehistoric jungle."

Because if she didn't, when she got home, Mikhail would slap her upside the head. Because who in their right mind passed up a chance to explore this place? Especially when they were strong enough to take everything in it on and live.

* * *

_-…"And this is an Alamosaurus, an herbivorous dinosaur, found in the US, it's the only Late Cretaceous sauropod that has been found in North America, don't you know, and this is Allosaurus, from the Late Jurassic Period. Did you know the teeth of Allosaurus were 5-10 centimeters long and curved backwards to prevent prey from escaping…?"_

_Mikhail is bouncing. Literally bouncing, and it's starting to scare her somewhat. Morgan just chortles, hooks an arm through hers, and smiles at the boy who's running his fingers over the air in front of each dinosaur display._

_"__Down, boy-o, you're scaring Kelly. Remember she's never seen you like this before?" Morgan chides without any real heat, and Mikhail blanches._

_"__Er, sorry."_

_It takes a beat for her brain to reengage, but she laughs and shakes her head. "Dude, you've gone with me to anime conventions, you know how I get. No need to be sorry about geeking out about something you love, I do it all the time. Christ, Mik, we've been best friends for years, how come I didn't know this about you?" she demands, going to stand next to him as he looks up at the Allosaurus bone model._

_He shrugs. "We never really got a chance to talk about it. My dad hated it. Said it was a pussy habit-" and god, she has never hated Jim Oblensky more than she does in this moment right now – "And I just didn't…" His ears are red and his eyes are dark, and Kelly restrains the urge to start swearing._

_She is so glad that fucktard excuse of a man is dead, and a look at Morgan reveals the thought is mutual. Another look passes between the two of them, and they promptly loop their arms through each of his._

_"__C'mon, Mik," Morgan says with a smile. "Why don't you tell us more about this Wallosaurus thing?"_

_"__Yeah," Kelly chimes in just a beat after her. "Did you say it was from the Jurassic Park Period, or something?"_

_They're deliberately butchering the things he's told them, things they know, but it's worth for the smile that quirks his lips up again and the spark that lights his eyes. They spend the rest of the day walking around the museum, ooh-ing and aw-ing at everything Mikhail told them, glaring at the old ladies and suburban parents who've obviously decided the three of them are some degenerate perverted threesome, and pigging out in the food court._

_All in all, it's a very, very good day…-_


	7. Big Trouble in Little Garden

**Title:** On the Ocean Blue

**Written By: **NikoArtagnan

**Genre:** Fantasy/Friendship/Adventure

**Rating: **T, will eventually go to M

**Summary: **_She was always just an ordinary girl…Until the day she wasn't. (OC-Insert)_

**Warnings:** OC, **lots of foul language**, bisexuality, blood, mentions of torture, implied pairings, mental problems, gender fluidity(?), **abuse of italics**, abuse of flashbacks, breaking gender norms one at a time, Kelly does not deal with grief (or feelings in general) very well, Kelly Has **Major** Issues™, I am not kidding about that, _at all_. More will be added as needed.

**Author's Notes:** Chapter Seven begins! And I've been saving this title for some time now (lolololol *feels clever*).

So yeah, it's been a long while since I last updated. In my defense, I discovered RuneScape (a really fun MMPORG) and it's _eating my brain_ …wait that's not much of a defense. *coughs* Gods, I'm such a nerd.

Uh…anyway, please read, review, and enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Seven:**

Big Trouble in Little Garden

* * *

Little Garden was _amazing_.

Kelly flew through the trees, using the branches of one tree as a springboard to the next, lightly touching down only for a second before leaping to the next, smiling all the way.

She halted on a thick branch, high up in the canopy, surprising a flock of brightly colored birds screaming into the sky. Laughing, she flung up her arms.

"Look, Ma, I'm a ninja!" She crowed and collapsed into a heap of convulsive giggles.

She'd sent Gin and Shere Khan ahead, to find the wax home that Mr. 3 made, with orders to locate the Eternal Log to Arabasta, with a bellyful of magic so they could easily protect themselves from the island's more…prehistoric residents.

Kelly knew _full well_ that it was Sanji who was supposed to find the Log, but Kelly _also_ knew that if she had the Log, if she found it _before_ Sanji did, then…

A burst of riotous laughter startled an enormous camouflaged python who'd been coiled sleepily around the tree's trunk, making it rise up threateningly before Kelly could soothe it back into sleep, apologizing for interrupting its nap. Kelly grinned as the python rested its head on her shoulder, flicking its tongue out to brush against her cheek. She ran a single finger over its immense coils.

She could only imagine how utterly _pissed off_ Sanji would be, if she received the grateful hug from – was it Nami or Vivi? She couldn't remember. But the thought of making the blond man even angrier than he already was sent her into yet another fit of giggles, so much so the dark brown python gave her a quizzical look. She nuzzled it.

"Just being stupid, darling. Go back to sleep," she whispered, and the python was happy to oblige.

Kelly had a definite fondness for serpents, one that had extended well back into her childhood. She'd always been good with animals (and this was before she'd become a Magus), but – then and now – she had an especial affection for serpents, who gave her unswerving loyalty, be they of the land or the sea.

All animals liked her (or at least could be persuaded into liking her, as was the case with herbivorous animals), but serpents liked her the most. She assumed the reason for that was a combination of her being both a Magus and a Snake herself.

She yawned and looked out over the jungle. She was high up, her perch giving her a spectacular view of the canopy of Little Garden and the volcano in the distance. She leaned back against the trunk, letting the wind cool her face.

Her clothes – being as spelled for cool and air flow as they were – had kept her nice and comfortable in the hot, humid jungle, but her face had still gained a light sheen of sweat from her race through the trees and a run-in with a particularly vicious velociraptor-esque thing.

The air shook as the volcano let loose another thunderous rumble, spewing ash and lava into the air.

"Dorry and Broggy must be starting their fight," Kelly said to herself, her attention more on the beautiful view than anything else. Her fingers itched, like worms crawling beneath the flesh, wrapping around her bones.

She wanted to draw it. She wanted to draw that view so _damned_ bad.

The prehistoric jungle canopy, spreading out for miles, green and lush, with tiny spots of color here and there, with the volcano in the far distance, coated with lava and belching perfectly formed clouds of gas into the achingly blue sky. Her throat and fingers ached at the view.

She had her Sack with her and in it were the new art supplies she'd impulsively bought at Loguetown. So she could, if she wanted to. She had all the time in the world.

The blue and gold-threaded strap wrapped around her chest suddenly felt too tight and she sucked in a desperate breath of air _-…"What are you drawing, Kel?" Kelly looks up and smiles involuntarily at her girlfriend, smudged at the edges with dirt from the garden she'd just come from working in. Her light-blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail, her face a little pink from the morning's sun._

_"__Just a picture of the view," Kelly says, gesturing at the open window and the breathtaking view Kelly's house above the valley affords her of Aratuck Island and the ocean that lies beyond, as the sun casts its crimson light in wide arcs across the water, just beginning on its daily journey across the sky._

_Mina leans over her shoulder and Kelly unobtrusively takes a deep whiff, eyes closing in subtle enjoyment of the blonde woman's scent, of growing things and newly turned soil erotically edged with the lily of the valley scent she habitually wore._

_"__Kelly, this is amazing," Mina says in frank astonishment, and Kelly blinks, coming out of her light trance._

_"__What?"_

_"__Kelly, why did you not tell me you are such a wonderful artist?" the woman asks almost reverently, running a fingertip over the edge of the paper Kelly had drawn the view on._

_Kelly shrugs. "I'm not. Nothing special, I mean, and it's been so long since I had the opportunity to draw anything, I just, I mean…" Ears burning, she looks away, only to jerk reflexively when Mina kisses her neck._

_"__You are a wonderful artist, my love," the shorter woman says quietly, then smiles. "We will have to get it framed, hang it somewhere where everyone can see it."_

_Kelly blinks in shock. "Y-You're serious."_

_"__Of course I am." Mina straddles her lap, setting the notebook behind her on the desk. Kelly's hands go to her hips, holding the curvaceous woman in place as she rests her arms on either side of Kelly's head._

_They smile at each other, and Kelly feels a soft warmth in her heart when she asks "Can I draw you?" and Mina whispers "It would be an honor."_

_They don't do much else for the rest of the morning (after all, Kelly has a gorgeous woman on her lap, she's not going to do much else but pay her the appropriate attention), but when the moon rises high in the sky Kelly slips out of bed and spends four hours drawing the naked Aphrodite she's somehow managed to trick into falling in love with her…- _Kelly pressed a hand to her face, biting down hard on the inside of her cheek until hot, salty blood filled her mouth, and she swallowed, the coppery taste of her own blood and the pain driving away the tears that burned her eyes.

Turning away from the view, she patted the python as it began spiraling up the trunk, heading for higher territory.

She leapt to a lower tree, and continued her path through the jungle.

* * *

_(Mistress.)_

The word spread across one of the bands that coiled out from the immense wellspring of magic that rumbled deep within her belly, racing up the covering of power that coated her spine until it fizzled across her brain. Kelly blinked as she opened her eyes.

She ran her fingers across the soft fur of the spotted panther cub she'd been healing, then pushed the cub back to her mother, who licked her cheek.

"Be careful, kiddos," she told them, brushing a hand across their fur, feeling the mother purr under her touch. The mother scooped her child up in her mouth and took off, vanishing into the tree Kelly rested against.

_Gin?_ She sent the question reverberating back over the coil the message had come from.

_(We've found the Eternal Log, Mistress.)_

Kelly grinned. _Good. I'll wait here for you…How's Shere?_

_:Hi Mama:_ Accompanying the greeting was a distinct sound of enjoyment and contentment, and the faint echo of razor-sharp teeth crunching through bone, and the warmth of meat and blood resting in her belly. Kelly smiled.

_Did you find something good to eat, my darling?_

_(She took down a pterodactyl)_ Gin said dryly.

It took a few moments for that to register. _Come again?_

_(She took down a __**pterodactyl**__. Hid in a tree and waited until it came close and took it down mid-transformation. Thing had a thirty foot wing-span and it crumpled like wet paper when she got her claws in it.)_

Kelly blinked, then stood up._ …Did you really, Shere Khan?_

_:Mm! And it tastes really delicious Mama, do you want me to save you some?:_

_No thank you darling, I'm not hungry._ It took a great deal of willpower to keep the amusement out of her reply. _Good for you, Shere. I'll be waiting here after you finish._

_(We'll be there soon, Mistress.)_

_:Om nom nom:_

It was only when she was certain that her two Familiars were busy did Kelly give into the tickle in the back of her throat and roared with laughter.

Those two were ridiculous. Good grief.

* * *

She tucked the hourglass-esque device into the Sack, where it would be safe against everything but a nuclear warhead, so spelled and magicked was the infinite bag.

"Well done, my darlings," she said, as Shere Khan immediately began shrinking back down into her original size, only to stop, look around, and then begin to grow again, back to the horse-sized tiger she'd been when she'd emerged from the trees.

With a fearsome snarl, Gin began to grow as well until he was the same size as Shere, a sleek black mountain of a panther, and Kelly realized why just as a faint buzzing across her skin turned into a roaring in her ears and the scent of sickly sweet, rotting things filled her nose. Her heart dropped through her stomach, even as she quickly stashed the Sack into the roots of the tree.

_'__God damn it,'_ she thought with a snarl of her own.

Then there was a terrible noise, a screechy, twitchy, awful sort of sound that emanated through the trees as Kelly moved into the center of the clearing, Gin and Shere watching her blind spots. Kelly quickly shucked her gloves, tucking them into her pocket, and allowed a small amount of magic to fizzle through her hands, turning her nails razor-sharp and black as pitch. She usually kept her nails filed and lily white, but in a pinch, she could turn them back to the state that had been 'normal' for her in the past several weeks.

They were a pain in the ass, but made her _Shigan_ about twenty times more effective.

"Where are you, you fucking abomination of nature…?" Kelly hissed.

"sO rUdE…" The scratchy, inhuman voice cackled, making the hair on the back of her neck stand straight up. She could only sense one, which was a relief, but a Daemon who could survive in the Grand Line had to be a strong one.

"Why don't you come down and say hello, then? I can't make nice if I don't have a face to put with the voice, now can I?" Kelly said, letting her arms hang light and loose at her sides, Gin and Shere watchful, waiting in anticipation.

This would be a perfect way of gauging her own strength, because she hadn't fought a Daemon in a little over two years. Aratuck had been blissfully free of the monsters.

(...Well, it had been free of the _Daemons_. There had been plenty of monsters on Aratuck.)

There it was. It was 'hidden' in the shadows of the trees to her left, staring at her with hundreds of eyes in places they didn't belong, all bloody-red with hunger. It was a squat thing, with eight spider legs that have too many joints in them, an enormous, football shaped, black body, and a head split down the middle to reveal a gaping maw of razor-sharp, gnashing teeth.

It whined, a low, hungry sound no human could ever hope to replicate.

"So _HuNgRy_…" it wheezed. "BlOoD, bLoOd Of A mAgUs, FOoOoOoOd…"

It wasn't humanoid, which was a relief. Kelly had been hunted by all four levels of the Daemon Hierarchy in her years, from the Animalistic to the Highborn.

The Highborn, who could masquerade as humans themselves, were the most dangerous Daemons. This one leaned more towards the Animalistic side of the spectrum, but it could talk, which mean it was packing _some_ sort of power.

The magic rumbled through her veins, setting every nerve-ending alight with power, and Kelly gave the creature a smile that would have sent anything with half a brain screaming in the opposite direction.

The break had been good while it lasted. But now it was time to _really_ let herself loose.

Perhaps it would even be fun.

* * *

Okay, maybe it wasn't as fun as she had thought it would be.

She trembled, body still pumping adrenaline through her veins like liquid lightning.

The oozing sack of flesh, rotting bones, and blinking eyes twitched, feebly reaching out one of the unbroken limbs that hadn't been ripped off, stripped of their flesh, or mangled beyond repair. Kelly stamped down on its head with one iron-plated hiking boot, the spells woven into the metal crushing what little life there still was in the creature.

The thing let out a horrible, gurgling groan that trailed off into a hideous whine, then finally, _blessedly_, to silence.

She groaned and stepped back, rolling her shoulders. Gin stepped up behind her, letting her rest her back against his broad side. Shere was already in her smaller form, resting atop Gin.

"Are you all right, Mistress?" Gin asked.

"Mm, yeah," Kelly said, taking a deep breath as her magic raced across her limbs, healing the cuts and bruises. She grunted as it stole beneath the skin under her breasts, pulling her shattered ribs back into place, the free-floating fragments fusing back to the original bone.

She threw herself away from Gin as the poison that had turned her lower intestine to mush was forcibly expelled and vomited helplessly for several minutes. She spat black bile and mucus for several minutes more before she was certain there was no more poison left in her body, then shakily wiped the gunk from her face.

Kelly staggered back onto her feet and lurched away from the mess. But before she could fall flat on her face, Gin got his body behind hers.

The brown-haired woman draped herself ungainly over his back, pressing her face into Shere Khan's orange fur.

She groaned. "By the Gods, I'm out of practice."

"It's been two years, Mistress. It's only to be expected," Gin said, tossing her the Sack. She sat upright, and pulled a water canteen from it, taking a long drink. It was ice-cold spring water lightly flavored with lemon, perfect for getting the taste out of her mouth after a battle with Daemons.

"Let's go see if we can find the others. Everything should be finished by now," the Magus said quietly, sketching in the air the magical sign that quickly cleaned the Daemon's blood and viscera from her clothes and her Familiars' fur.

She'd underestimated the monster and it had nearly gotten her killed. She pressed a hand to her chest as the final bone fragments fused back into place and winced, the magic not bothering to chase away the dull aches and light bruising.

_'__Let it stay,'_ she thought, grinding her teeth as she remembered the fight, her face burning with shame. _'Let it be a reminder against the follies of such stupid arrogance.'_

The sun burned with hideous brightness, and the very air itself seemed to warp and twist around the fuming Magus.

* * *

Perhaps it was awful of her, but seeing the ridiculous pose Zoro had struck in the wax candle thing Mr. 3 had trapped him, Vivi, and Nami in made her giggle maniacally. She took back everything she'd said before, Zoro was a _dork_ of the highest order.

"Mistress…" Gin said with a long suffering sigh, resting beside her on the thick branch of the tree they'd hidden in to watch the fight between Luffy, Usopp, Carue and the Baroque Works' Agents.

"What?" she asked him, smirking in childish delight. "It's funny, Gin-Aido!"

"Mistress, it's not funny. At all. Have you even thought about what being encased in wax alive is like? Have you even considered the fact that those three could very well be cognizant of everything that's happening to them? That they feel every ounce of wax coating their organs, their innards, choking the very breath from their lungs inch by inch? Have you considered _that_? You know well what that sort of torture is like, after all. It wouldn't be past the realm of possibility for them to be _completely awake and aware of what's going on._" Gin asked, his silver eyes sharp and a little disappointed.

Kelly blinked, taken aback.

"Mama, I wonder if it hurts…" Shere whispered, looking down at the enormous, pumpkin candle thing and the humans trapped in it.

"But that…" Kelly trailed off.

"But what?" Gin asked, just as quietly as ever. "That's not what happens in the manga and anime? Mistress, that was a _book_. A _story_. This is not. This world is not fictional Mistress, no matter how you wish it to be, and the people in it are as real as you and I."

She stiffened at the censorious tone, fighting the urge to say something stupid. She had a hundred utterly cruel, utterly awful retorts boiling behind her teeth, but she bit her tongue. She was a vicious bitch when she was angry or embarrassed, she'd _always_ been that way, but now it was even worse. If it had been anyone else in the world chastising her, she would have let that temper nail them just where it hurt, made them back the fuck off, but…

But to _Gin_?

To one of only two beings in the world that had been by her side for years? To the one who taught her magic and Rokushiki, who had saved her life more times than she could count?

To the man who held her when the nightmares made sleep impossible?

She breathed in and out slowly, biting back the bile until it vanished. She smoothed a hand over Gin's fur.

"It's hard," she said quietly. "It's hard to think of this world as real, that the people in it are real. That's means I," The words lodged in her throat as she remembered-

_…__what comes from her mouth is a sound no human could ever make, a howl like a thousand dying animals. The bonds snap like twigs, and her magic comes roaring back into her conscious mind like a tidal wave. The man crouched over her stumbles back, a scream on his lips, but she is on him before a sound passes from his mouth. Her teeth bite down deep and she pulls, rips, __**tears**__ through his flesh, sending arterial blood splattering everywhere. He dies, choking, drowning in his own blood as she stalks out into the main house, the world disappearing into a blur of colors, but the sounds and smells amplified times a thousand._

_Gunpowder, smoke, metal, sweat, blood, a thumping sound that grows faster – she strikes out with her claws and the guard who's trying to kill her goes down, trying to scoop his innards back into his body even as the rapid thumping slows and stops completely._

_She hears a hundred of those thumping, beating sounds approaching, and hisses with fury. She will kill them all. They are __**nothing**__. Sacks of flesh, bone, and blood, blood that will coat her hands, her mouth, her body by the time she is finished scouring this mansion of those who betrayed her._

_She will find that old hag, that bitch Usana who'd trapped her in her house and saw her as nothing more than a womb, uterus, and cunt, and she will take great pleasure in wringing her wrinkled neck. _

_But only after she has killed every member of Usana's family first._

_It is the first time she actively seeks to kill, to __**eradicate**__, and it is so very, very easy._

_Later she will wonder at this, and she will wonder:_

_'__Was I supposed to feel anything at all?'…_-and she shuddered, coming back to herself.

"It means I have to accept that I'm…I'm a…_murderer_," she whispered. "That I'm…_not_ who I was. That the Kelly I was died a long, long time ago. I'd rather not. If I think about that for too long, I'm not…not going to deal with it well. So I make jokes. I laugh at stupid shit like that goddamned monstrosity Mr. 3 built. It's how I deal with things. How I've always dealt with things. And I _have_ to stay distant from them. I have to. God knows I'm already invested beyond what I thought I'd be," Kelly said with an irritated sigh.

The blush stealing across Nami's face as Kelly laid a kiss to her palm, the panic and terror in Luffy's eyes as he screamed for his nakama stuck in the belly of Laboon, the devilish grin in Zoro's eyes as he faced down the Whisky Peak bounty hunters, the red-hot fury in Sanji's eyes and voice as she flirted with Nami, and the elaborate, extravagant tales that spilled with disturbing ease from Usopp.

Kelly turned back to the battlefield, struggling for composure, just in time to see Carue and Usopp get shot in the back by one of Mr. 5's Breath Bomb Bullets as he tried to shoot something at the wax statue.

Then she stared, a little blindly, at the three figures encased in wax on the candle, vaguely noting Luffy and Mr. 3's fight_-…She was choking, choking, she couldn't breathe, and the man giggled as tears slipped from her eyes, her body immobile. "A Magus Golem," he whispered, excitedly. "Finally, I'll have a Magus Golem, and you shall protect my village for years and years to come." And the stone was growing in her lung, coating her organs, and it hurt so much…-_and wondered if Gin was right.

Were they awake in there?

Usopp managed to stay on his feet. She had no idea how, but he did, and grabbed the slingshot yet again. He was horribly injured, she could smell the blood, but he aimed once more.

"My-My friends," he whispered. "I have to save my friends-" He was cut off as another Breath Bomb crashed into him, and he spewed blood, his eyes rolling up into his head as he dropped to his knees.

Kelly couldn't breathe. _'And I called him a coward,'_ she thought ashamedly, even as he gestured to Carue with a huge coil of rope he pulled from his backpack.

Things seemed to be heading along the proper lines, as it were. Carue would race around the candle, Luffy would use Mr. 3's lit-candle head to set the blaze, and everything would be all right.

But then, there was yet another explosion, but this time it was _Carue_ who was sent flying, to land in a heap several yards away from Usopp.

"CARUE!" Usopp and Luffy screamed, even as the Baroque Works' agents laughed.

"It's time we finished this," Mr. 5 said, and aimed the gun at Usopp again. Luffy was unable to do anything, with Mr. 3 keeping him from getting close to the marksman. Carue was unconscious. The wax was still pouring down over those too-still figures.

And Kelly knew if that bullet hit Usopp again, he would die.

_'__This isn't how it was supposed to go,'_ she thought numbly. _'Why, oh Gods, why, he's going to die, someone do something, I can't move, I shouldn't move, I'm not allowed-'_

The trigger was pulled back. Luffy screamed in fury. Usopp's eyes closed, resigned, trembling.

"Super Breeze Breath Bullet," Mr. 5 said, and let it fly.

"Mistress, do something!" Gin all but screamed it.

Miss Valentine was laughing that annoying, chittering laugh.

_"__SORU!"_


	8. A Lonely Man Walking In A Lonely Fog

**Title:** On the Ocean Blue

**Written By: **NikoArtagnan

**Genre:** Fantasy/Friendship/Adventure

**Rating: **T, will eventually go to M

**Summary: **_She was always just an ordinary girl…Until the day she wasn't. (OC-Insert)_

**Warnings:** OC, **lots of foul language**, bisexuality, blood, mentions of torture, implied pairings, mental problems, gender fluidity(?), **abuse of italics**, abuse of flashbacks, breaking gender norms one at a time, Kelly does not deal with grief (or feelings in general) very well, Kelly Has **Major** Issues™, non-consensual mental alteration. More will be added as needed.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Chapter Eight. Damn, I never thought I'd get this far. :D I'm so proud of myself.

Some reviewers have asked when Kelly's gender will be revealed. Sorry, but that's a fair while in coming. It definitely won't happen before the Arabasta arc. And, yes, it's going to be _spectacular_. *cackles*

I also like working with the POVs of characters other than my OC. So this story won't be completely from the POV of Kelly, other characters will occasionally pop their heads in to say hi. Like this chapter, for instance. And, to be perfectly honest, I have a definite fondness for Usopp. He's easily one of my favorite characters in One Piece – clever and smart, but still flawed. I hope I did him justice!

* * *

**To Savage Kill (and anyone else interested):** RuneScape is an online game where you can create a character and guide them through the world of Gielinor (nicknamed RuneScape). You can fight monsters/other players, work on building your skills (combat to magic to hunting to cooking to everything and anything else in between), venture out on quests that grant awesome rewards, or just explore. It's one of the biggest games of its type, and the level of detail put into the game itself by the developers is absolutely staggering, considering it's an online game.

It's both free-to-play and pay-to-play. You can start out in free-to-play (like me) and be able to have access to a wide variety of activities, quests, and places to explore. This also allows you to decide whether or not you wanna play the game without having to commit. But getting a membership allows you to have access to all of Gielinor, all of the activities, quests, skills, items, yadda, yadda, yadda.

It's a fun game, and I have a great time on it, meeting lots of new people and exploring without ever leaving the comfort of my own home. Try it out!

_(oh god send help I'm obsessed)_

* * *

**Chapter Eight:**

A Lonely Man Walking in a Lonely Fog

* * *

**USOPP**

He was going to die.

Oh, he didn't _want_ to die, especially not now, not when his friends needed him so much. But he couldn't move – his bones felt like jelly, he ached all over, and he felt as though his muscles had turned to 1,000 pound weights – and he knew that here, facing a man who could make any part of himself explode, that was a death sentence.

"_USOPP_!" Luffy screamed as Mr. 5 cocked the gun.

The sniper closed his eyes. Why wasn't he stronger? Why wasn't he faster? Why wasn't he cleverer? Sanji and Zoro wouldn't be in this position if they'd been in his shoes. They would have beaten the crap out of Mr. 5, saved them all.

Nami and Vivi would have managed to talk their way out of this, somehow. They were ridiculously smart, and Usopp knew Nami could talk a man out of the shirt on his back if she tried hard enough.

He saw Carue's singed body lying some yards away, the wax steadily choking the rest of the life from his friends' still bodies, and Luffy – red-faced, hoarse from screaming, and burned down one side – fighting to get past Mr. 3. He saw the still, wax-coated form of the fallen Elbaf giant, and Usopp wished – oh, by the Gods, how he _wished_ – he was stronger, a real "warrior of the sea".

_'__I'm sorry,_' he thought to his nakama. _'I tried, I really did. But that wasn't good enough. I've never been good enough, and now my friends and I going to die because of it.'_

He tried so very hard not to cry.

He would not disgrace himself by crying like a baby, not in front of Luffy. There was the faintest puff of air, and Usopp gritted his teeth, waiting for the end. The Baroque Works' agents were all laughing, Luffy was screaming-but then.

Then he heard someone yelling – _"SORU!"_ – and then there was a figure standing between him and certain death, shadowed by the glaring light of the overhead sun.

"_Tekkai_," the figure said, voice as cold as ice and harder than diamonds, and the air bomb rushing towards them _flattened_ as it slammed into the figure's outstretched palms, dispersing – harmlessly – into the air around them.

He stared. _'Who-?'_ He thought wildly, but then the figure knelt down, and the words caught in his throat.

It was Kel.

Kel Ohtori, with a mischievous laugh and grin for anyone who cared to look twice in his direction, who moved like a cobra when he walked, who knew how to press Sanji's buttons better than anyone – including _Zoro_ – who flirted outrageously with Nami, and who loved his cats more than anything.

Kel Ohtori, who knelt in front of him, with eyes the color of jade, muscles pulled tight and taut in a face pale with fury, the sun blazing around his head like some deity's golden crown.

"What do I need to do, Usopp?" the man asked quietly.

His mouth worked, trying to form words, but he coughed instead, and blood filled his mouth, spilling over his lips. When he managed to get himself under control and looked back up at Kel, he felt something deep inside of him cringe away in terror.

Kel's face was blank, not an expression on it but for the eyes.

In his home village, they'd often have fall festivals, with sweet treats, lively music, and enormous bonfires made from fallen leaves. Sometimes they'd chop down whole trees and use them to fuel the fires. Usopp remembered watching one when he was about five, watching an oak crisp and burn in the flames, and at the very heart of the twelve-foot high bonfire, he could see a painfully bright green flame, the color of emeralds.

Kel's eyes burned like that green fire did, with a slow, intense fury, but the hand he laid on Usopp's cheek was gentle. He scooped the oil soaked rope up in his other.

"You did very well, kiddo," Kel said. "Yer friends are alive. I'll take it from here." Then he paused, looking – of all things – _uncertain_, before sighing. "Oh, fuck it," he whispered, and pressed a finger to Usopp's head.

The sniper let out a groan of relief as something warm stole beneath his ribs, healing the bruising and internal damage. Even as the warmth continued to ease his aches, one end of the rope was placed in his hand.

"Hold this for me," Kel ordered and closed his hand into a fist around it. "Can you do that, Usopp?"

He nodded, still dumbfounded and a little bit light-headed from the warmth seeping into his skin.

"Good man." The dark-haired man stood, letting the rope hang loose around his wrist, the end clasped tightly in in his hand. "Let's do this then."

Mr. 5 pointed the barrel of the gun at Kel, who didn't even flinch. "Just where do you think you're going then, hm?"

Kel laughed, a dark, awful sound and shook his head. "Moron." Then he disappeared.

Usopp barely had enough time to clench his hand around the rope end he held before it shot out of his grip. He couldn't believe what he was seeing – or rather, what he _wasn't_ seeing. The dark haired man was moving so fast he seemed to teleport from place to place, landing lightly on one section of the wax, before disappearing to the next, leaving sections of the oil-soaked rope embedded in his wake.

_Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!_ Mr. 5 shot again and again, trying to hit Kel, but every last shot missed. He felt himself smile so wide it was painful.

He quickly lunged for his bag, to get something to light the rope, only to get crushed flat into the ground by a surprising weight against his back.

"I don't think so. _Crescendo Stone_," Miss Valentine said. She turned to look down at him, smiling unpleasantly as Usopp choked under the sudden and crushing weight. "I wonder how many kilos you can stand? 10 kilos? 30 kilos?" Usopp felt the ground cave under the pressure being forced into and through his body and spat blood, his ribs creaking dangerously.

How were they going to win? He couldn't reach his slingshot or anything to start a fire, not with his bag so far away and this monster crushing his internal organs. Usopp kept reaching for his bag, but his eyes looked furiously around the battlefield, looking for anything that could start a sufficient fire to light the rope. Then he saw it.

"Luffy!" he cried out, choking as the weight increased. "Luffy, use Mr. 3's flame to light the rope!"

His captain stopped, skidding back several feet. "What?"

"LIGHT THE DAMN ROPE WITH THE FIRE, LUFFY!" Usopp hollered with all the air he still had left in his lungs. "IT'LL SAVE THE OTHERS!" '_C'mon, Luffy, use that tiny brain of yours and think, damn it!'_

Luffy's eyes lit and he turned back to Mr. 3. One rubbery hand shot out and latched around the bottom of the three, right below the flame. He immediately began dragging the Baroque Works' officer to the rope.

"Everyone wake up! Wake up!" He yelled.

Usopp sighed in relief, only to choke in shock as the weight on his back increased tenfold.

"You little _shit_," Miss Valentine snarled, the rage contorting her face into something ugly. "How dare you interfere with us! _100 kilos! 200 kilos! 300 kilos!_"

Usopp would have screamed had there been any air left in his lungs. _'Damn it Luffy, h-hurry up!'_

"_Tetsu-tai ken!_" And then he heard Miss Valentine scream and the pressure left his back. He was hurriedly pulled out of the crater the officer had forced him into, and cradled against a hard body. His limbs flopped uselessly, his cheek resting against a thickly muscled shoulder, and then the world was a blur of color.

When everything finally stopped moving, he was nestled in the thick roots of one of the large trees bordering the battleground, with Carue laying on the ground beside him, Gin and Shere Khan curled around the injured bird, and Kel standing in front of him.

"Close yer eyes, Usopp," the man said, leaning over him and bracing his arms above Usopp's head.

Usopp closed his eyes.

There was a tiny _puff_ of noise, then a riotous wave of color burst like fireworks behind his eyelids. He could feel the insane heat through the very tree itself, which trembled and groaned, so strong was the fire.

_'__The tree_,' Usopp thought to himself, dazed and delirious from the pain and the heat, _'sounded like it was crying.'_

"It's okay," Kel was whispering – whispering to the _tree_? – and Usopp managed to open his eyes, if only for a brief second.

Kel's eyes glowed like emeralds baked in the heart of the sun, and vines of pure, green energy vanished into the tree, keeping it steady.

"It's okay," Kel whispered to the tree. "I have you, my love, just stay standing."

Usopp closed his eyes as the inferno blazed, and waited for it to recede, his mind capable of taking nothing else.

* * *

Usopp didn't know if anyone else saw it, but when Nami and Vivi had latched onto Kel after the man had produced a perfectly whole Eternal Log from his bag, the dark-eyed man had…

Had _flinched._

It had only lasted for less than a second, but Usopp had seen it, he knew it had happened, before Kel managed to master himself and return the hugs – faking an ease Usopp could see the man didn't have.

He'd never seen anyone – in his life – that uncomfortable with another human touching them.

No, wait…he _had_ seen it before. Back when he was little, when his Mama had been the main doctor on the island, a pirate ship had been wrecked in a vicious storm, and the only one who had survived had been a man – a slave to the pirates.

He'd remembered wanting to go ask the man questions about what it was like to live with pirates – because then he'd been too young to realize what the man had gone through – but his Mama had told him not to, eyes tight and sad and hard.

She told him then_-…"Not all pirates are like your father, and most people fear the skull and crossbones for a very, very good reason."…-_and he'd watched through the window as the man woke up, delirious and confused and his Mama had gone to help him.

What had happened next had scared him deeply_-_

_…__His Mama moves slowly towards the man staring at the wall, like she is approaching a wild animal, and lays a hand on his shoulder as Usopp watches. The man flinches, sharp and involuntary, and whirls around, pressing his back against the wall, all the while letting out these half gasps and cut-off noises that could be words but aren't anything coherent._

_Usopp doesn't know why this man is so afraid of his Mama. His Mama is the best doctor in the village, warm and kind and strong, full of glittering, colorful stories from her time as a Marine patrolling the Grand Line, and with capable, gentle hands that could heal anything from a cut on the knee to bullet wound. Obviously this man didn't know anything, Usopp decides._

_His Mama whispers now, quiet and gently, "My name is Banchina, what's yours? It's a beautiful day outside, if you're feeling better I'll take you outside so you can see the sun, feel it on your skin. It's a wondrous feeling, isn't it, the sun? Warmer than most people can bear, I've often found, but I love it. When I was a Marine, I spent hours on the deck basking in the sun. My men used to laugh at me, called me a lizard. But after we spent months on end battling our way through storms that threatened to overturn the ship and seeing only gray skies, they realized why I liked it and joined me after a while. They called themselves 'Banchina's Lizard Squad", can you believe it? Such idiots. Anyway, do you feel up to eating anything…"_

_On and on his Mama speaks, softly and slowly, until the terror and pain that darkens the man's eyes and tenses his shoulders begins to seep away. Tears spill over the man's cheeks and he weeps like a baby into Banchina's arms._

_A year later, the man will leave Syrup Village, headed for the home that was stolen from him. He's as healthy as Usopp's Mama can make him, but he never does quite stop flinching when someone touches him without his permission…_

-and he still remembered that man to this day.

Even though that man and Kel were as different as night and day – no one could ever accuse Kel Ohtori of being half as timid as that man had been – that fear in the man's eyes had been the same fear that flickered through Kel's. He found his eyes drawn towards the dark-haired man as he smirked at a fuming Sanji – Usopp snorted at how easily Kel pushed Sanji's buttons – and he wondered what had put that fear in Kel's eyes.

What could make a man with such skill and power so wary of other humans?

Later, as they sailed away from Little Garden, Usopp caught the taller man watching him with dark, cold, inexplicably sad eyes, and felt his soul shrink away in fear.

* * *

Usopp yawned, idly casting a look out over the sea before turning back to the blueprints he'd been working. It was how he spent the night watches he so often volunteered for. It was generally quiet at night, perfect for working on his weapons and inventions.

He smiled ruefully. He'd learned quickly not to work on certain ammunition whenever there was a chance Luffy could interrupt. The spices and Tabasco he worked with were not to be mishandled – he learned his lesson the last time Luffy knocked a whole vial of it into his unprotected eyes. He shuddered.

He looked up at the sky through the light fog the ocean had shrouded the ship with, only to blink as a voice reached his ears.

"_Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme._ _Remember me to one who lives there, she once was a true love of mine…"_

He didn't recognize the voice, hauntingly deep and hypnotizing. Then a shiver of fear wrapped around his spine. He'd heard stories about voices like that. Voices that could convince a man to walk off his ship and be dragged down to the deep by women with ragged hair and too many teeth.

_"__Tell her to make me a cambric shirt. On the side of a hill in the deep forest green. Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. Tracing a sparrow on snow-crested ground without no seams nor needlework. Blankets and bedclothes the child of the mountain…"_

Sea-singers, mermaids, sirens of the deep. Usopp began shaking as the mournful words curled around his ears, urging him closer and closer to the edge of the crow's nest.

_"__Tell her to find me an acre of land on the side of a hill, a sprinkling of leaves. Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. She washes the grave with silvery tears between salt water and the sea strands…"_

He didn't want to look over the edge. But he had to. What if it really was a monster? Everyone else was asleep but him, the monster could kill them all in their sleep. But Zoro and Sanji and Luffy were all really strong, and so was Kel, so they shouldn't need him, right?

Against his will, his body inched towards the side of the crow's nest, sweat breaking out over his body, his fingers trembling-

"Usopp?"

"GYAAA!" He shrieked at the voice that came from behind him. He whirled around, his heart pounding like a drum in his chest and saw Kel climbing over the edge of the crow's nest. The man stopped and blinked.

"Are you all right?" Kel asked, raising an eyebrow as he took a seat opposite Usopp.

Usopp struggled to control his breathing, slumping against the wood behind him.

"Do you make _any_ noise?" he got out, rubbing his chest.

The sound that came from the taller man would have been a snort of laughter from anyone else.

"Nah," he said, eyes twinkling with mischief. "It's too much fun watching people jump when I sneak up on them."

Usopp twitched. "_Gaaah_, you _bastard_," he said.

Kel chortled. "Such compliments!"

Then there was a silence between the two of them, not quite comfortable, a subtle tension growing in the air as Usopp remembered what Kel had done in Little Garden.

What was Kel, anyway? Had the man eaten some Devil Fruit? That wouldn't explain why he hadn't told any of them about it, though that could be the reason why Kel had asked to come along. They had a Devil fruit user as a captain, they wouldn't be quite so liable to freak out because of someone's powers.

But why hadn't Kel told them about it?

"Hey Kel-"

"Usopp, tell me about your home."

Usopp blinked at the non sequitur.

"Uh, why do you want to know?" He asked.

Kel smiled at him, and something about that smile made sweat break out on the back of his neck.

"Just curious. I do so love to hear stories, and you are a master storyteller, Usopp, if I could venture my own opinion. Do you think you could tell me some?"

Usopp felt his chest swell as Kel cocked his head at him, eyes shining with admiration.

"Well, I don't know-" _'And wait a minute, what was he doing? He wanted to ask Kel what he had done at Little Garden!_ "-I'm not that good…"

His mind felt warm and fuzzy, like it had when he snuck a taste of his mother's spiced mead back when he was six-ish.

"Nonsense, Usopp," and Kel's voice had taken a warm, liquid-y quality, smooth as silk on his ears, as addictive as chocolate. "Tell me. Tell me some of the stories you have in your head, and tell me the stories of your home. Syrup Island, am I right, my dear boy? Tell me stories of the leaves in autumn, the people you saw in your childhood, the food you ate for breakfast, for lunch, and dinner. Tell me stories of the girl who you gave the first vestige of that overwhelming imagination to. Tell me stories of _Kaya_, of _Banchina_, of _Yasopp_, dear, dear Usopp. **_Tell me_**…"

He talked. He told the other man as many stories as he could, felt the words – fictional and real, sometimes blurring the lines between the two – pour from his lips in and unstoppable flood, drowning out the little voice in his head that was screaming - _What the hell is going on, what is he doing to us?!_ - until it could be heard no longer.

Around an hour he talked, basking in the frank and admiring attention of the older man, until Kel offered to take the watch until dawn.

"You can get some sleep," he offered, still smiling, and Usopp really saw no reason to argue. He clambered down the ladder and all but staggered to the door that led down into the boy's room.

He stopped at the door, his mind suddenly straining, straining, desperately trying to reach something just beyond his grasp – _what did I forget, what did I forget_ – before the exhaustion roared back into the fore of his mind.

He would no longer think about what he'd seen Kel do with that strange power on Little Garden.

There were no longer any such memories of it in his head, after all.

* * *

Kelly looked out into the sky and let the tears come freely, swirling down her cheeks, misting into the deep, dense fog the ship was slowly passing through.

_"__Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. Remember me to one who lives there, she once was a true love of mine…"_ she whispered, and never felt more alone.


	9. There Are Dark Things in This World

**Title:** On the Ocean Blue

**Written By: **NikoArtagnan

**Genre:** Fantasy/Friendship/Adventure/ANGST

**Rating: **T, will eventually go to M

**Summary: **_She was always just an ordinary girl…Until the day she wasn't. (OC-Insert)_

**Warnings:** OC, **lots of foul language**, bisexuality, blood, mentions of torture, implied pairings, mental problems, gender fluidity(?), **abuse of italics**, abuse of flashbacks, breaking gender norms one at a time, Kelly does not deal with grief (or feelings in general) very well, Kelly Has **Major** Issues™, mentions of rape, forced pregnancy, gore, misogynistic slurs, possession, THIS STORY IS **REALLY** DARK. More will be added as needed.

**Author's Notes:** It's Chapter Nine! Come hell or high water, I'm determined as fuck to get this to the end (even though there are many, many chapters in between now and then). I won't be giving up on this story. I promise. This chapter is an interlude of sorts before we get to Drum Island.

So yeah, I just got caught up on the most recent chapters of One Piece. OMIGOD USOPP LEARNED KENBUNSHOKU. XDDDDDDDD_ I literally cannot, it's so perfect._

Heads up for future chapters (and this one)…Kelly (and my other OCs) are (and will become _even more so_) intimately acquainted with a trope I've found an _especially_ sadistic pleasure for. It's called the "Trauma Conga Line."

…Just a warning.

* * *

**Chapter Nine:**

There Are Dark Things in This World

* * *

_"__GET HER!"_

_She can feel the mob-lust thickening the air as she runs and it almost steals the breath straight from her lungs, so rotten and wretched a stench it is. She staggers and screams as an arrow enters her shoulder, driving her forward and pinning her to a fallen sheet of wood resting against a building._

_The panic is now a jittery dance of bile and shock in her throat, and she sobs, curling her left hand around the shaft and yanking it free. Blood splatters everywhere and the howl that leaves her throat is a truly unholy one, even as she incinerates the arrow with a quick spell._

_"__SHE'S OVER HERE!" She whips around, the few strands of blonde hair she hadn't shorn almost to the skull falling in her face. She moans in pain and fear, and digs around in the leather satchel strapped to her waist, pulling a small bundle of blonde hair tied by a silver ribbon. She thanks whatever God might be listening that her teacher – rest in peace, Donno-sensei – taught her how to do this._

_As her magic races to heal the wound left behind by the poisoned barb, she scoops up blood with the hair-bundle and waits. Soon, a man appears at the mouth of the alley, eyes dilated, mouth slightly slack._

_"__You killed the son of a God, bitch," he slurs, eyes alight with madness and lust, fingers gripping the air as though he's gouging bruises into her flesh._

_"__Your child was a monster," she hisses, remembering days of being fat, bloated, the thing that gestated in her belly, sucking reams of magic from her as she screamed in the night, chained to her bed by slavishly adoring men and women who stroked her belly. "And you are no God."_

_His eyes burn as his humanity is wrenched from him and he loses control of his body to the thing that lives within. He lets out this feral shrieking noise. She can see the Daemon that lives beneath his skin, with coal-green skin and eyes that flicker like the heart of dying fires, disjointed limbs and a gaping mouth filled with teeth._

_"__YoU wIll sUbmit…" It whispers to her, smiling almost charismatically, leering through the flesh sack it took as a disguise._

_"__Sanguinem igni!" She screams in reply, tossing the blood-soaked bundle of hair at him, followed by a magical sign sketched in the air with fire. She closes her eyes as a blaze of light rocks the alley, and the thing screams as the blood fire scooped from her veins slowly incinerates it._

_She turns, eyes still closed, and runs for her life for the umpteenth time since she landed on this in this wretched world._

* * *

_She is standing in an immense clearing, drenched in blood. Her fingers shake with fear and pain. Her magic is so low, so drained from days of torture and feedings by those…those __**monsters**__ that she doesn't know if she can fight the scouts that have come for her._

_But she must._

_There is a wolf standing beside her, tall and silver-furred, pressing its immense flank against her side, sending warmth and strength through her bones._

_"__Are you ready?" she asks the wolf in a voice strong and hard and spiced at the edges with an accent from the Deep South. The wolf looks up at her and nods._

_Her teachers have told her that in the first few weeks of becoming a Familiar, it took animals and spirits a long while to be able to communicate verbally, but that was okay. She can feel the wolf in her very heart. It is as though a part of her soul that she hadn't even known was lost had been returned, she was whole._

_She will never go back. Not to the castles of those monsters, where only pain and torture and a long, drawn out death awaits. She shudders and the air shudders with her._

_She has never been the strong one. She is small and slim and weak – a weakling, her father always said – even with the training from her teachers._

_But she will be strong now, and she will find her friends. She knows they're out there, that they were brought to this crazy world like her._

_Chittering, awful noises come from the woods surrounding her and fear fills her heart and lungs._

_"__mAgUs BlOoD…" something that could never be called human whispers in the tree line._

_And the earth shakes beneath her feet._

* * *

_The pain has faded away to a dull, throbbing pulse radiating through her bones. Her knees aches with cold from hours spent kneeling on the stone floor, weighed down by the hundreds of fine-linked, dark red chains that burn deeply into her dark skin whenever she dares to do more than breathe._

_There is a fierce clanging on the metal bars of the dungeon's door. She doesn't bother to look up, lost in the faces of a family she has not seen in so long, of a friend she had lost, and a man she loves._

_"__Ey, Magus bitch!" One of the guards assigned to watch her says, ugly hate and an even uglier leer in his voice. "Wake the fuck up, you're going to see the Council."_

_"__Enough." The new voice makes her freeze from shock and slowly, slowly she raises her head as the cage door opens and a man wearing a Marine's long, white coat over her shoulders – a man she knows very, very well, from both this life and the one before – steps inside, the top of his head brushing the ceiling of her tiny cage._

_Somehow, she finds the strength to speak, even with her throat as dry and cracked as it had become._

_"__Y…you f…ucking…traitor…" she gasps out._

_"__I was thrown out," the man says._

_"__Shheee…she cried…o…over you…"_

_The man's eyes are cold._

_"__And since she made you her heir, I doubt she was too heartbroken."_

_If she had the strength she would have snarled._

_"__Y…you…wer…her son…sh…ee…loved you…Kuzan," she whispers._

_The Admiral doesn't respond, only beckons to the men he's brought with them, and she is dragged out into the blinding light beyond the walls that were the only thing she had known for months._

* * *

_They think she's an ordinary slave. That her powers are the result of a Devil Fruit. She is prized, prized for her power and her muscles and her purple eyes. Her 'masters" are very, very fond of her._

_She keeps her head down, takes the beatings and other horrors her "masters" dole out, and waits – patiently, she is good at being patient – for her chance to strike. If it had just been her, she could have escaped months ago. But she can't help the sympathy that has grown within her for the rest of these trodden down, almost broken people. She will help them escape too._

_And she plans._

_She thanks God that Isono didn't just teach her control of her Magic, but how to survive in a world full of people like the Tennryubito – how to smile submissively out of one side of her mouth while plotting death and destruction with the other. It's ironic, that the half-breed Isono – daughter of a filthy Daemon and the Magus he raped to death – taught her more than proper Magus teachers ever could. _

_She thinks about a girl with dark eyes and a mastery for stage craft, thinks about the girl who taught her everything she knows about acting, and she thinks that she would have been very proud of her student, with how easily she plays the fat fools._

_She plans and she schemes and she waits._

_The whip slices down, cracking into her unclothed back with vicious cruelty, splattering blood. She grits her teeth and lets the anger fester in her belly, cold and hard and bitter. Her magic is dormant, kept silent by her implacable will, but it waits too. She smiles in her own mind, and waits for the day she will let every ounce of her anger turn loose upon her captors._

_In this life – and the one before – she knows well the name Tiger Fisher, and the destruction he wrought upon the cursed Mariejois._

_But she will not be as merciful as him. She will only stop her vengeance once the streets run red with the blood of the corrupted, and the whole world realizes their folly in protecting these monsters in human skin._

_And may the Gods have mercy on whoever tries to get in her way._

* * *

_The world burns. She almost trips over her own feet, the screams of the dead and the dying in her ears, but she keeps upright and herds the children towards the lifeboats as fast as she can, forcing herself to focus only on the boat waiting ahead and the women who are already on it._

_She will not think about the all too real possibility that only the children, and the fifty or so on the boat will be only the only ones who will survive this night, only a hundred people out of a population of a thousand who have any chance of living until sunrise, and that sparse chance is slowly decreasing by each minute._

_She hears a shriek behind her, a sound no human could ever make, and she will have a panic attack later, later when she does not have almost fifty younglings to protect._

_"__To the ship!" she screams. "Run, run, run!" The children pick up the pace, the eldest ones hauling the stragglers into their arms and racing to the women on the ship who hold out their arms, yelling encouragements._

_She flings the first child onto the ship, into a dark-skinned woman's arms, and repeats the gesture over and over again, not caring about where the children land, as long as they are on the ship, as long as they have some sort of safety. It is only when the ship is full, she leaps back onto the beach, signaling to the Sea Kings who will take the ship somewhere safe._

_"__Where the hell are you going?" A man with wild green hair and fur on his neck roars at her as the ship pulls out into deeper ocean, his panicked voice bracketed by the cries of the children and others on board._

_She does not reply, only sends a mental order to the Kings to get as far away from the island as possible and she turns just in time to see thing erupt from the woods. Legs fifteen feet tall support a squat brown body with a mouth that takes up more than half of the thing's torso._

_It screeches to see its prey vanish, mouth full of bloody teeth and the remains of her friends, and focuses its fury on her. Her dark brown eyes narrow with rage and her belly tenses with fear._

_And she does not know if she will survive the night._

* * *

_She does not know who she is. Her Master says she is one person, the Head Magus of his Family, and his lover, the mother of his beloved son, whom he rescued after her family died. He curls his fingers in her light red hair and pulls her close, kissing her as though he will never let her go. _

_She is not stupid enough to tell him about the dreams, about the dreams where she is more than just the one she is now. She is smart enough to realize that for all his caresses and soft words and burning passion, she still wears a collar about her neck and her wrists, a collar that binds every ounce of her to him, a collar that does not permit disobedience, even in her dreams._

_And something snarls in her chest, rumbling in discontent like her Magic does when her Master uses it for his own ends, uses it to strike fear into the hearts of his enemies. He does not permit her to find anything about the family she lost, and his eyes flash menacingly when she dares to push the subject too far._

_She sits upon the highest point of the castle she lives in with her Master's Family, and looks out over a city sprawled wide, a city she knows as well as she knows her own heart, and something aches in her chest._

_A voice whispers "Mistress?" A scaly head pushes itself underneath her hand and tucks itself by her side._

_"__I had another dream," she says._

_Another dream where there is no collar on her neck and wrists, another dream where she is sister and daughter and mother and wife, another dream where she lived in a world beyond this with a man and woman who took her from the streets and made her their own and the dark-eyed sister/brother who welcomes her with open arms, another dream where the restless anger and subconscious fury in her chest has been calmed by a dark haired man with a sword at his side, by the pink-haired baby girl she holds in her arms._

_"__I had another dream," she says again, but tears burn in her eyes and a nameless, inarticulate longing fills her chest until she could scream from the frustration and anguish._

_She does not know who she is, and how she wishes she did._

_The moon casts its silvery light upon the opulently decadent city where her Master is beloved by all, where she is treated as a Queen, but is – in reality - nothing more than a gilded cage, where not even her Magic is allowed to be free._

_She weeps into her hands and knows she will never be free._

* * *

Kelly Orion Lewis jerked from sleep with a gasp of shock, knocking Gin off the bed and Shere into the wall as she flailed for balance and comprehension.

She stared blankly up at the wooden ceiling of her room in the Going Merry, chest heaving, her hair sweat-soaked and sticking to her skin. She breathed in and out as slowly as she could manage.

"Mistress?" Gin asked, pulling himself back onto the bed, while Shere clambered under Kelly's arm and snuggled in her lap, looking just as worried as her male counterpart. "Mistress, was it another nightmare?"

Kelly, still breathing slowly, mind desperately trying to right itself in reality, placed her hands on her face, her hips, her belly, and her legs. She drew back the sleeve of the tunic she slept in, and ran her fingers over the silver-blue scales on the outside of her arm.

"Mama?" Shere asked, placing one paw on the Magus's chest. "Mama, what's wrong?"

Kelly curled her fingers through Shere's fur, and did the same for Gin with her other hand, pulling him against her bare thigh. There was silence for a few moments, the Familiars waiting on tenterhooks for their Mistress to speak.

Then Kelly leaned back against the headboard with a sigh.

"Nightmare," she confirmed. But something in her face kept Gin from going for the Dreamless Sleep potions in the Infinity Sack just yet. She sighed again and wiped the sweat from her eyes.

"Nightmare_s_," she said quietly. "I had nightmare_s_…but they…" she stopped, feeling for the words as though she was trying to convince herself of the words. "I had nightmares, but they weren't…_mine_." She looked frankly bewildered by the idea.

Gin went still.

"Why would I have nightmares that didn't belong to me?" Kelly said, the question aimed more at herself, even as exhaustion made her words slur and her eyes close, and she dropped back into sleep.

Gin pressed a human hand to her forehead and whispered a few words, sparkles of silver light into vanishing behind the Magus's closed eyes. The woman went limp completely after the sparkles vanished, her mouth slack, her head lolling, relaxed in a way she hadn't been able to afford to be since Toratega.

"Gin!" Shere hissed. "What are you doing-?"

He gave her a forbidding look.

"She needs her sleep. So do you, Shere Khan."

"But-!"

He sent her another glare, this one so fearsome it froze the protest in her throat.

"_Sleep_."

* * *

The moon was full, blinding in its blaze of light.

Gin curled up on the railing of the ship, watching the sea with cold eyes. If he had been able to find a private place he would have indulged in a furious temper fit, but there were no places on this ship where one could be truly by themselves.

So he contented himself with glaring at the water lapping at the sides of the ship's hull.

How many _others_ had She brought to this godforsaken world? How many lives would Her selfish need ruin until She had Her vengeance on the Old Ones?

He had lost more than one Mistress to that insane bitch's plans, lost them to the insanity, the pain, and the scars that this godforsaken world seemed determined to etch into every Magi's bones.

He would not lose this one.


	10. Snow (Hey Oh)

**Title:** On the Ocean Blue

**Written By: **NikoArtagnan

**Genre:** Fantasy/Friendship/Adventure

**Rating: **T, will eventually go to M

**Summary: **_She was always just an ordinary girl…Until the day she wasn't. (OC-Insert)_

**Warnings:** OC, **lots of foul language**, bisexuality, blood, mentions of torture, implied pairings, mental problems, gender fluidity(?), **abuse of italics**, abuse of flashbacks, breaking gender norms one at a time, Kelly does not deal with grief (or feelings in general) very well, Kelly Has **Major** Issues™, sadistic tendencies, racism. More will be added as needed.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Chapter Ten! _Woooo_! The reason this thing took so long was because I got a minor case of carpal tunnel. It was horrendous and god _damn_, I was in pain.

…Yes, I know that says something about my computer usage.

…No, I don't want to know what that is. But hey, I'm all better now! The doctors caught it early enough so that about a week of rest and drugs (ah, lovely pain drugs) was able to take care of it. So I powered through this chapter and made it extra-long, as a treat for waiting so patiently!

In other news, if someone could show/tell me where I could find (or even send me it) a copy of the Merry Go and Sunny Go's blueprints/semantics with rooms and different parts of the ship labeled, I would adore you. Because I can't keep the picture straight in my head as things stand, so if you see mistakes like that, please let me know/correct me! I do so very much love constructive critiscism.

Timelines will also be played with, extended and shortened as the story dictates, so if there's any confusion about when events happen, this is the reason.

The title is the same one as a Red Hot Chili Peppers song. I listened to it practically nonstop while writing this.

* * *

**Chapter Ten:**

Snow (Hey Oh)

* * *

**DATE: **_Fuck, I don't know. Monday? I think? It's early, though. The sun's barely over the horizon_

**MY LOCATION: **_The Grand Line (Gods, that's so weird to write!)_

**PLACE:** _My room, the Going Merry (and that's even weirder to write)_

_So what comes next is Nami's illness, and getting Chopper as a doctor for the ship._

_Not looking forward to it. Illnesses fucking suck, man. I remember when Nee-chan_

_…_

_…_

_…_

_Never mind._

_Anyway, yesterday I got this drawing from Usopp_

_…_

_…_

_…_

_I can't_

_I can't do this_

_I don't want to remember_

_fuck_

_…_

_…_

_God damn it, __**pull it together**__._

_~KL_

(Below the word "Usopp", there is a picture of aforementioned sniper with his slingshot in hand, his dark hair wildly curly, and his eyes narrowed on some target in the distance. And below the word "Nee-chan" is yet another picture, this one of a woman with a close-cropped head of light red, almost pink hair, and an amused smile, a pair of over-large headphones wrapped around her neck.)

* * *

"GET _OUT_."

Kelly laughed as she danced back through the kitchen doors and onto the deck, dodging with inches to spare the shiny loafer that cut through the air where her head had been just seconds before.

She widened her lips into a girlish pout as the Straw Hats' cook stormed out after her, fire in his eyes and a spatula in his right hand.

"Che, cook-san, why're you so angry? It's the _truth_, after all," Kelly said, restraining the urge to giggle as spots of red rose in his cheeks.

"YOU-YOU-_YOU_-" He spluttered, hands curled into fists, knuckles white.

"I mean, all I was saying was that you're a pathetic little puppy trying to beg attention from women who are clearly so far out of your league it's a little ridiculous!" Kelly said with a nasty smile. "I mean, think about it, cook-san. It's not what you would call _inaccurate_, after all. That's all you really are, right?"

As long as she lived, Kelly would never forget the look that crossed Sanji's face at her words. There was fury, yes, and a decent helping of "I WILL END YOU NOW" along with it, but there was…

There was pain, too.

His lips were tight, a thin line that trembled slightly and his eyes shone with some dark emotion. She'd seen that look on her own face (_too_ many damn times), back in her previous life, when the bullies got too much to deal with. Her tormentors had known exactly how to make their words hurt, too.

Something deep inside her was screaming _What the fuck are you _doing_?! Remember, we like this guy and we want him to like us. Pissing him off is fine, but this…This is just fucking _wrong_, god damn it. This isn't us._

But something even deeper than that, something so deep that she was barely cognizant of the words forming, whispered sadly _But he can't like us. Not now, not ever. We're monsters, freaks of nature. We have to be cruel to keep him away. If he ever got close enough to us like we want, if we ever cared about him like we did for Mikhail, for Morgan, for _Mina_, and he found out about what we are, he would turn on us, try to kill us, sell us. They always do. _

_And even if he did like us, we'd only get him killed in the end._

Kelly bit the inside of her cheek and fought to keep the sly, upturned curve on her lips.

"Darling, are you _jealous_ of me?" she asked instead, properly incredulous. "I mean, I know I'm twice the man you could ever be-"

"DIE." The familiar anger leapt back into his eyes and he launched himself forward. Kelly stepped out of the way, making it appear like she was just barely gliding around each devastating kick. Kelly knew that Sanji was an extraordinary fighter and would only become _more _so, but the ease with which she could dodge his attacks was bordering on ridiculous.

But then again, she'd spent almost the entirety of the last decade running and fighting for her life against monsters that were (at _least_) on Vice-Admiral levels, so perhaps it wasn't that weird.

She mentally shook herself. Why was she angsting when she had a furious Sanji trying to knock her block off right in front of her? Christ Almighty, was she an _idiot_ or something? Why wasn't she taking her chance to make those gorgeous blue eyes darken with pain?

She stepped into Sanji's guard and slammed as brutal a punch as she could manage (but one that wouldn't break him in half) into his stomach, folding the blond cook almost in half over her fist, expelling the air from his lungs in a painful gasp. She quickly hooked a leg around his and yanked, dropping him to the deck.

Then a thoroughly evil smile curved her lips for the briefest of moments and before she could talk herself out of it, she straddled the blond man and leaned in close. His eyes widened as she rested each elbow on either side of his head.

"This is cozy," she commented idly, smiling nonchalantly as Sanji froze.

"Wha-wha-wha-_what_ _the _hell_ are you doing, you shitty bastard?!_" He screeched, his voice rising almost to a falsetto from the shock.

Kelly mentally sniggered, and tried for a simper. She didn't know if it worked, but by the equal parts revolted and – hilariously – aroused look that scrabbled across Sanji's face, it certainly did _something_.

"You know, Sanji-_kyun_," she simpered, pursing her lips in a pout. "There's something I always wanted to tell you."

The blond man immediately began squirming, trying to get out from underneath her, but she slipped her legs in between his, spreading them wide and keeping them still. His hands curled into fists, but before he could do anything else, she pressed the pressure points on his shoulder, preventing him from moving his arms.

His eyes practically bulged out of his head as she smiled at him.

"Sanji_-kyun_," she said, resting her arms on either side of his head. "I _really_ do have to tell you this. It's so _very _important, you know."

Sanji now looked both morbidly curious and revolted, and a very pronounced twitch had taken up residence below his left eye.

"Oh Sanji-_kyun_, why won't you just listen to me? It really is _important-_"

"_Just tell me what the hell you want, you shitty pervert, and get off me!_"

Kelly leaned back, tsking at the volume his screech had risen to. "So impatient."

The twitch was even more pronounced now, making Sanji's face appear as though it had contracted a rather severe case of Tourette's.

"_What the fuck do you _want_, god damn it?!"_

Kelly leaned in close again, so their lips were barely an inch apart, making sure she had a serious a face as she could manage with the mad laughter that was erupting from within her head.

"Sanji, I just wanted to say…"

She leaned towards his ear and breathed hotly over it, insanely delighted to feel a shiver wrack his body.

"I just wanted to say…"

_'__Wait for it…'_

His body stiffened in involuntary anticipation.

_'__Wait for iiiiiiiiiit…'_

"Your food's burning," she said, and pulled back to watch the show.

His face was frozen, a light dusting of red over his cheeks as her words sank into his brain. Then his face changed colors so fast it was like watching an Everlasting Gobstopper melt in super-fast forward.

"YOU SHITTY FUCKTARD!" He roared. Kelly let the man throw her off, cackling as he raced back through the doors of the kitchen. The faint odor of burnt food drifted out and Kelly clung to the railing, weak with laughter.

'_I'm so going to pay for that,'_ she thought, clutching her sides as she roared. _'But it was so very, very worth it.'_

* * *

**DATE: **_Concerning the end of events on Little Garden_

**MY LOCATION:**

**PLACE:**

_Those giants were fucking __**Bad. Ass.**_

_Jesus Christ, them cutting that ginormous hole in that freaky, over-sized goldfish was a thing of beauty, I'll tell you. _

_…_

_So, things were all right, in the end. (Well, not all right, but everything was okay.) The crew knows about some of my martial arts abilities and I admitted to it regularly enough when Luffy asked – with stars in his eyes – about what I was doing._

_It was kind of annoying, but really it's not that unexpected, that my skills would have come out like this. I mean, if it wasn't for the events that're upcoming, then my blossoming "rivalry" (and the fact that I so clearly outclass him) with that blond dumbass certainly would have revealed my fighting abilities._

_And really, that's not important, in the scheme of things. I could afford to reveal parts of my Rokushiki. There are three other things I __**have**__ to keep secret._

_My gender, my…Snake-y bits, and my Magic._

_It's going to be hard enough as it is to keep that a secret._

_~KL_

* * *

Kelly yawned from where she sat – next to Vivi, who was looking out at the ocean with distant eyes - combing her fingers through Shere Khan's fur. It was a wonderful day, with an almost obscenely cheerful blue sky, dotted with tiny puffs of white cloud.

But Kelly kept her eyes on Nami, who was staring down at her legs, breathing unsteadily. Her cheeks were a ruddy red color, and sweat turned the hair at the back of her neck to a burnt umber. And the _stench_…Almighty God, it was horrendous, the sickly sweet, wretchedly familiar, rotting smell of the ill.

The Magus was grateful she could numb her own senses when she needed to. It was hard enough as it was not to gag.

Kelly noticed Nami start to tilt to the side, and mentally swore.

"Vivi…I'm sorry, but can you watch our h-heading? I'm going to my room," Nami said, trembling slightly.

"Of course, Nami-san," Vivi said, smiling. "Get some rest."

Nami pushed off from mast, and tried to take a step, but just dropped like a sack of potatoes to the deck. Vivi gasped.

"Nami-san!" she quickly hurried over to the fallen navigator. Vivi hissed as she put her hand to Nami's head and quickly yanked it away.

"Like an open flame," Vivi whispered, before raising her voice to a shout. "Everyone, come quick! We have a problem!"

The door to the kitchen opened, and Kelly heard Luffy ask what was going on.

"Nami-san has a terribly high fever," the princess told them, and Sanji's reaction was typical, if stupidly melodramatic. Kelly rolled her eyes as the blond man nearly knocked the rest of his cremates over so he could flutter his hands over the downed navigator. The rest of the Straw Hats gathered around their fallen crewmate, just looking at her.

Finally Kelly got annoyed by the fact that no one was doing anything, and shooed Shere Khan off her lap. She stood and made her way over to them.

"Move, ya idjits," she ordered, elbowing Luffy in the side. She scooped Nami into her arms as gently as she could, and stood again, letting the navigator's cheek rest against her shoulder. Her eyebrows raised in shock at the amount of heat the poor girl was giving off.

"Fucking hell," she whispered, and turned to Usopp and Luffy. "Yo, Usopp, I need a large basin full of ice cold water, and a smaller bowl full of thin ice chips. Along with that, I need several towels and a large bucket. Straw Hat, you help him out_._"

The sniper leapt up. "O-of course!" he said, and quickly hurried into the back of the ship, pulling Luffy along with him. With that done, Kelly turned to Vivi.

"Princess, you come with me. Roronoa, keep an eye on our heading. Don't fucking touch anything, 'cause I've heard stories about how bad you are at directions, but just make sure we're traveling in a straight line, and sound the alarm if anything happens."

Zoro nodded and left in the direction of the upper deck. Kelly winced, and turned to Vivi. "Vivi, you'll be helping me a lot, but check on him occasionally to make sure he doesn't get us lost, okay? That's the absolute _last_ thing we need right now."

Vivi grinned and nodded.

"All right then, show me where Nami's room, then. Ah, cook," Kelly stopped and turned back to Sanji, only to take a step back when he practically teleported in front of her.

"Where do you think you're going with Nami-san?" he hissed at her.

Kelly rolled her eyes. "I'm taking her to her room, dumbass, so she can rest. I need you to-"

"Bull_shit_," he hissed. "You couldn't care about someone if you tried, you fucking _abomination_. All you want is to molest her."

Vivi gasped in shock.

The force of those words was like a blow to the stomach. Kelly fought to keep her face neutral as she looked at Sanji squarely in the face and tried to wrangle her voice under control. She knew she'd regret the incident this morning, but _Jesus _fucking_ Christ_, she didn't think Sanji had this sort of shit in him_._

"If you're so concerned about Nami's virtue in my presence, you needn't be worried," Kelly finally managed to get out, the words as flat and monotone as she could make them. She'd always been so good at hiding the hurt before – why was it so difficult now? "I'm not so desperate for a fuck that I'd have my way with a _deathly ill_ woman. Could you make some chicken soup or broth of any kind? The fever's going to dehydrate her rapidly." She turned around and looked at Vivi, and there must have been something truly awful in her face, because the princess's eyes went wide with shock.

Kelly swallowed the ball of fiery tears that had condensed into a hard knot at the back of her neck and nodded to the princess. "Show me to Nami's room, please."

* * *

_-…The villagers stare at her, with strange looks in their eyes, and it has every hair on the back of her neck standing straight up. She walks into the first available shop, where hopefully she can charter a ship to get her somewhere near the Grand Line – she has money now and everything!_

_The owner of the fishing store – Gerrant, it said on the sign outside – is a shorter, elderly man, with white wisps of hair curling over a mostly bald dome. There are deep wrinkles carved into his face by both time's inexorable passage and a great deal of laughter, and he reminds her so much of her paternal grandfather it hurts._

_She'd never been close to her maternal grandparents – strict, traditionally racist Southern fuckwads who didn't approve of their only granddaughter "associating" with a "Negro wench" and the illegitimate child of a "Ruskie" – but she'd loved Ezekiel and Ursula Magnus for the short time she'd had them. She can still taste the red gumdrops her Papaw used to sneak her under the table before dinner, and she can still smell the spicy cinnamon that cloaked her Mamaw after she spent the morning crafting the best Thanksgiving feast this side of the Atlantic._

_"__Um…excuse me?" she says, and the man looks up from the newspaper with a smile on his lips._

_"__Ah, a cust-" Then he stops, and just stares at her like the villagers did, and something very dark and very awful passes over his face so quick she takes a reflexive step back._

_"__Um, um, sir, I was wondering if I could charter a boat to the next island," Kelly asks timidly, feeling goosebumps rise on her arms. Something inside her is __**screaming**_ _run, run, run! "I-I have money."_

_"__I won't have any truck with your kind," he spits out, and Kelly blinks at the sheer vitriol in the man's voice._

_"__Excuse me? Sir, I don't-" She just barely dodges the beer bottle he throws at her, and it crashes against the wall, spilling beer and sending glass everywhere. She stares at the stain on the wall for a few seconds, uncomprehending, and turns back to the man._

_"__Dumb as a fish," he snorts and stands up. "Get the fuck out of my shop, you fucking freak, and go back to the sea where you belong. Your kind doesn't belong with humans."_

_Kelly can't believe what she is hearing, and looks down at arms, only to blanch in shock at the sight of the outsides of her arms lightly covered in soft silver scales. They hadn't been that big yesterday!_

_She starts to ask for a ride but is interrupted when a hand grabs the back of her shirt and hauls her up, her feet leaving the ground._

_"__Having problems, Gerrant?" A man's voice says behind her._

_"__Get that animal out of my shop, or I'll sell it to the World Government," Gerrant snaps. "I know you don't approve of slavery, Jossik, but it really is the only way to deal with these…things."_

_There is a sigh from the man holding her up. "I'll take care of it." Kelly is sat back on her feet, and then there is a large, warm hand pressing against the small of her back, propelling her out the door._

_But she hears the last word the man says before she leaves the shop, and something hard lodges itself in her throat._

_"__Abomination of nature…" the man is saying with all the hate in the world in his voice, and Kelly realizes then that she's not going to have an easy time at all in this fucked up world she's landed in…-_

* * *

Kelly could feel Vivi, Sanji, and Carue's eyes on her back as she worked, diligently mopping up sweat, spooning chicken broth and water into the shaking navigator's mouth, holding back Nami's hair when she retched helplessly into the bucket Usopp had fetched, keeping cold compresses on the weaker girl's fevered forehead, crooning softly all the while. Shere Khan curled up on the pillows next to Nami, and Gin was on the other side.

They'd managed to power through the storm they would have run straight into if Nami hadn't managed to turn the ship around, and Vivi had asked them all the find a doctor for Nami as quickly as possible, so then they could travel to Arabasta and save her people. The crew had been happy with Vivi's selflessness, and had agreed.

Kelly had seen the enormous cyclone Nami had managed to save them from, and had realized it then.

_Nami was a Magus._

It was physically _impossible_, even on the Grand Line, for a human to have such sensitivity for the emotions and moods of the ocean.

It was possible that Nami was just strong for a human, but Kelly knew it wasn't that.

Nami had realized the storm was coming before even _Kelly_ had. That should have been impossible, but it had happened. The fondness Gin and Shere had for the orange-haired woman was even more confirmation towards that, as Familiar(s) were generally a lot fonder of other Magi than they were of humans or other races, especially if the Magus in question was of the same element as the Familiar(s)' master.

Kelly felt herself smile involuntarily, gently smoothing out the blankets that covered the navigator and sitting back as the girl dropped into a hazy, semi-restless sleep.

Something inside of her was crying with joy. _We're not alone!_ It was saying._ Thank the Gods, we're not alone!_

* * *

Kelly hadn't gone outside with Vivi to check on the others during the interlude with Wapol. They could handle themselves, and Nami needed her more.

She turned the sodden rag over so the cooler side lay against Nami's forehead.

Picking up the sick bucket so she could go empty it, she stopped as a soft, trembly voice spoke up from behind her.

"Kel?" She immediately set the bucket back down and dropped to her knees beside Nami.

"D'you need something, Nami-chan?" she asked, her voice low and soothing.

"W-Why…Why are you doing this…for me?" the ruddy-cheeked woman asked. "You're not even a member of this ship, why are you doing this for me?"

Kelly paused, and leaned back. "Because…" she began, and the words strangled in her throat and Nami looked so tired, so confused _-…Nee-chan's hair is matted to her face by sweat, and Kelly wipes it away, and whispered quietly "Cause you're my sister, Amber, and I love you bunches," and she tries not to see how gray and thin the older woman has become…-_and Kelly sighed, pressing Nami back against the pillows.

"Sleep, Nami-chan. I'll take care of you."

* * *

She had a point to make.

Kelly knew she'd crossed a line this morning with Sanji which had led to him lashing out this afternoon, and while she understood that, some things had to be addressed _immediately_.

She cornered the cook in the kitchen as he was making some broth for Nami's dinner. He'd eyed her warily.

The Magus sighed. "I came to apologize," she told him, and fought the urge to laugh tiredly as his jaw dropped. "I said some things I regret. I'm not usually such a vicious bully, but sometimes I take a joke too far. I do regret the nasty things I said you this morning, and am sorry beyond words for them. I should not have said those things."

She squared her stance. "But that's all I'm going to apologize for. I know you care about your crewmates, so I understand, and you're a chivalrous man, so I respect your concern for them both. But I would never molest a **_dying woman_**. Nami is perhaps the one person on this ship I can say, without a shred of hesitation, that I like the most, that I _care for_ the most, and that disgusting insinuation you made this afternoon was an insult to us both."

Kelly kept her eyes on Sanji's, her voice calm, and the insults away from her speech. She was here to make a point, not get in a fight.

"Nami is a beautiful woman, as is Vivi. I am not dead, so yes, I've noticed that. But I have all the respect in the world for them both, and would never do anything to them unless I had their _complete and wholehearted consent._ And Nami…" the words faltered in her throat. She hadn't wanted to give the Straw Hats anything of her old life, especially not of Nee-chan, but she knew she had to.

"I had a sister," she told him, as honestly as she could. "I had a sister, and I loved her very much. Nami is much like her."

Something soft gentled the hard, wary lines around Sanji's eyes. "What happened to her?" he asked, just as simply as her words had been.

"I lost her to illness." The words hurt. They hurt so much, like knives in her throat, but Kelly let them come. This was no longer about gaining Sanji's trust anymore. "I watched her waste away for days after the doctors tried everything they could to save her and failed. I watched her grow thinner and thinner every day, starving no matter how much food I tried to give her, even with ten IVs in her arms. She died in my arms, not even realizing who I was at the end."

Kelly rubbed a hand over her face. "Do you know what it's like, to watch someone you love waste away to nothing and know you can do nothing to stop it? And I'm watching this happen all over again with Nami-" She closed her mouth and sighed.

"That's all I wanted to say." She turned and walked out the door, heading back to her room as quickly as she could move.

Snow fell in tiny swirls outside the window, dancing in strange duets to a music only they could hear, and Kelly felt in that moment, so utterly, utterly tired.

She leaned against the wall and sighed. She wasn't running away.

Really, she wasn't.


	11. Like Muhammad to the Mountain

**Title:** On the Ocean Blue

**Written By: **NikoArtagnan

**Genre:** Fantasy/Friendship/Adventure

**Rating: **T, will eventually go to M

**Summary: **_She was always just an ordinary girl…Until the day she wasn't. (OC-Insert)_

**Warnings:** OC, **lots of foul language**, bisexuality, blood, mentions of torture, implied pairings, mental problems, gender fluidity(?), **abuse of italics**, abuse of flashbacks, breaking gender norms one at a time, Kelly does not deal with grief (or feelings in general) very well, Kelly Has **Major** Issues™, sadistic tendencies, racism, chauvinism. More will be added as needed.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Well, most of chapter eleven saved on the hard drive at my parents' house, so I found it and decided to crank it out. My outline saved too (along with over half of my past work thank God) – though not chapters twelve through fifteen fffffuu – so I'll be steadily working my way back to where I was.

(I also caught up with the manga. HAAAAAA, wtf Oda. Dead children and a nun, Christ Almighty. Law's backstory as a whole is shaping up to be one giant clusterfuck of Trauma Conga Line… _I can only ever aspire to such sadistic greatness_)

I've thrown a minor OC in here, just for the Drum Island Arc. She's not one of the Chosen Ones. *shrugs* What can I say? Dalton's awesome and I used to nurse a major crush on him, and I thought he deserved this. And like all things, it's a way to cause still more heartbreak, guilt and grief for Kelly! :D

…Yeah, I'm a bit off the head.

**Minor Edit:** I've changed Kelly's last name from Magnus to Lewis. Because a Magus named Magnus grated on my literary senses.

* * *

**Chapter Eleven:**

Like Muhammad to the Mountain

* * *

Kelly refused to go outside when they reached Drum Island, knowing just how badly she would react when Vivi would be shot by the paranoid villagers, and asked Zoro to let her know when they were disembarking instead.

So she stayed inside with Nami, writing down things of her old life she wanted to remember in her journal, so she would never forget. Her father's recipes, the folk stories her mother told. The way the city sparkled at night, a thousand specks of star light illuminating a city that never slept. Her sister's laugh. The taste of her favorite foods. How Morgan drew flawless sound from any instrument she touched, the deep, resonating baritone of Mikhail, and the way the three of their voices flowed together through song after song after song.

She doodled some scribbles in the margins of the paper, until the door opened and Zoro came inside.

"C'mon, let's go," he said. "We've found a doctor."

* * *

Unlike the time at Whisky Peak, Shere Khan and Gin were more than happy to stay behind as Kelly bundled up for the trip (and the tortuous hike up the mountain), secured her Sack to her waist and quickly hurried out.

Zoro helped get Nami onto her back, and Kelly was only slightly reassured by the weak squeeze the orange haired woman gave when her arms curled around Kelly's neck. The heat that radiated from Nami left trickles of sweat running down Kelly's back, but she simply shrugged off the discomfort and firmed her grip on her legs.

Kelly's first impression of Drum Island was that it was _damn cold_. She was not a fan of the cold. It made her feel sluggish and stupidly sleepy. Luckily the magic woven into her underclothing quickly activated and warmed her up.

_'Magic really is awesome,'_ she thought as they trudged through the knee-high snow towards the village.

Then something occurred to her.

Sanji hadn't made a fuss about her carrying Nami.

She looked to her side, where the man in question walked on the other side of Usopp, and blinked when she found his eyes on hers. Sanji stiffened when she raised an eyebrow at him, and looked hurriedly away, the very tips of his ears turning red.

Both eyebrows shot well into her hairline.

What was all _that_ about?

* * *

Bighorn could have been any small European town high in the mountains, perhaps in the Alps, but Kelly was willing to bet that no European town had ever been host to such strange animals. She watched the enormous, white-furred, water buffalo/hippo thing walk by with restrained amusement, much as she had watched the hiking bear.

'_This really is a different world_,' she thought for the umpteenth time. _'This could be any ordinary town on Earth, until you see one of these things walk by_.'

One of the white bison things, its legs extended to their full growth and not hunched in the snow, strode by, laden down with packages.

She sighed and gently squeezed Nami's legs as Dalton dismissed his people.

"We've made it to the village, Nami-chan," she whispered, trying to send faint tendrils of magic through Nami's body, to ease her suffering. But all the orange haired woman could say in reply to Kelly's words was a faint mumble of barely cohesive words.

Kelly's lips thinned.

She'd been trying to use her magic to break through the illness, but its hold was strong on the fledgling Magus. Had this been the keschia virus Kureha had saved Nami from in the manga? Or was it something worse, something brought on by her exposure to Kelly?

She looked towards the mountain in the distance. _'Let Kureha and Chopper be miracle workers,_' she prayed, eyes fluttering closed, and the words silent on her lips. _'Let them save my anistaka.'_

Kelly had no idea what that word meant, but it came from her heart, and it fit.

_Anistaka,_ a voice whispered in her head, like moonchimes on the edge of her conscious mind. _Dear one, sister Magus. Friend._

She turned her attention to Dalton as he waved off the old man's cheerful greeting and promise to vote for him in the election.

"No," Dalton said gently. "Do not vote for me, I am a man of too many sins."

Kelly could have laughed at the irony. _'I am many years younger, Dalton,_' she thought, placing the muscled, dark-haired man at around his early 40s. _'I am many years younger, but in a hundred years your list of sins could never hope to match mine. You'd make a great leader. You care for your people as Wapol never did, and what mistakes you've made, you've sought to atone. Most men wouldn't do such a thing. Most **humans** would never do such a thing.'_

She'd always liked Dalton before. It was nice to know that he was as good a man in real life as he seemed to be in the manga.

He opened the door to the small house, and called out something that surprised the hell out of Kelly.

"My love? I've brought you guests!"

Kelly blinked. _'What the hell?'_

Then a voice – a voice that froze the blood in Kelly's veins, because it was a voice she heard in some of her worst nightmares – replied with a merry laugh. "Guests, Dalton? Why do you never inform me of these things ahead of time, you daft man?" It was a warm voice, soft and smooth, naturally maternal and quietly feminine. And the presence Kelly now sensed made bile surge in her belly. She hadn't noticed it, because her attention and Magic had been focused on Nami.

A woman opened a door near to the fireplace and carefully walked out, resting a hand on the wall as she moved towards them, bringing with her the faint scent of growing things and a subtle aura of power Kelly knew she was the only one who would be able to sense. At her side prowled a bear, steadying the woman as she walked. Dalton's entire face just lit from the inside out, and he met her halfway, cupping her warm brown face in his hands and kissing her softly. He pulled away and turned back to them.

"I would like you to meet my wife, Sara," he said, and it was impossible to describe the love in his words.

The bile and guilt churned in Kelly's belly until she was afraid she would be sick, her attention riveted on the lovely woman. She was short, no more than 5"2 in height, with thick curves, golden brown skin, and sleek black hair cropped short around her face. She wore a floor-length, thick flannel dress over a white turtleneck, fluffy red slippers, and her hands gently cradled the growing mound below her substantial bust.

Kelly breathed slowly, trying to halt the choking noise threatening to burst free. Sara's eyes had always been beautiful, the color of the green grass after rain. But she could see them no longer.

Sara's eyes were now covered by a thick, ugly scar that cut lengthwise through them both. A scar that could have only come from a slaver's – or master's – cruel knife.

The Magus shuddered_-"Don't leave me! Don't leave me!" screams out from behind her, but she keeps running, like the cowardly dog she is, because she can't go back, **won't** go back to that hellhole-_and turned away, biting her lip.

"You can use this bed," Dalton said, and pointed. Vivi helped Kelly lower Nami onto the bed and cover her up. Kelly sat on the opposite side of Vivi, putting most of the bed in between herself and the blind woman who stood by the crackling fire with Dalton's arm wrapped around her shoulders.

"Tell my husband what has brought you here while I check on your ill friend," the woman said to Vivi, moving towards the bed with careful steps.

Vivi explained about what they had come to here to do, and that Nami's temperature had risen considerably in the past days, but Kelly heard none of it. All she was conscious of was the blind Magus checking Nami's pulse, resting a callused hand on her forehead, and doing what she could.

Once she paused, stopped, and her mouth curved just slightly, and tendrils of nearly-invisible magic began to trickle into Nami's body, though the blind Magus soon stopped, looking puzzled at the resistance.

"All we have to do is wait for the next day when she comes down the mountain," Dalton was saying, but Sara shook her head.

"My love, she will not survive that long," the woman said gravely, catching the eye of all the Straw Hats, including Luffy and Usopp, who had come in after Sanji had demolished their snow creations.

Dalton turned to her. "Sara, the trip up the mountain-"

"-is dangerous, I realize this, but she must go _today_," Sara said with force. "If she has any chance of surviving this night, it lies with Ageha, and only her. If you do not get her to the mountaintop tonight, your navigator will **_die_**." She directed this last part at the Straw Hats, and Luffy in particular.

"Che…we can't take Nami-swan up a mountain in her condition," Sanji said, looking out the window. "And we don't have the time to wait for that witch, either."

As the Straw Hats worried, Sara turned her head to Kelly, stilling the breath in the taller woman's lungs.

"You, come with me. I have some climbing boots and things that will make your ascent a bit easier to manage. You will help me gather them."

The words strangling in her throat, Kelly nodded dumbly and followed the other Magus through the door into a large kitchen, and through yet another door into what appeared to be a bedroom. Sara ushered her in and shut the door behind her. The bear padded over the carpet in front of the shut window on the east wall and curled up there.

"You know…" the other Magus said quietly. "After our parting, I'm not expecting you to run into my arms, but could you at least speak to me, Kelly?"

"Sara," Kelly choked out, the single word dragging over her throat like shards of broken glass. "Sara, I, I-"

The older Magus smiled sweetly and gently took the other's hands. "There, that's much better, isn't it?"

-…_The first thing she knows is pain, and she slowly comes out of the drugged sleep to a soft hand rubbing the sweat and blood from her face. She cries out as she tries to sit up, and the same gentle hand presses her back to the ground._

_"Don't," a voice warns her. "They worked you over very badly, and the men here aren't exactly too generous with the medical aid. Not for the unattractive women."_

_She stops trying to rise and instead opens her eyes. She is in a small, dingy room, laying on what feels like a tiny, threadbare cot, and leaning over her is a woman with the most vivid green eyes she has ever seen in her entire life._

_The bruise that covered almost the entirety of the woman's jaw on the right side does nothing to hide her warmth. Kelly turns her head to her side and sees a bunch of women – her age or older – with muscled limbs and faces that could never be termed "the epitome of beauty" sitting against the walls, eyeing the two of them avidly. She turns her head back to the woman._

_"Wh-where am I?" she whispers, her voice a raspy croak._

_The woman's smile turns sad and her response sends a spike of terror down Kelly's spine._

_"The slave cages, my dear. You're a slave now."…-_

Kelly felt the burn of tears at the back of her throat. "I'm so sorry…" she said, grinding the heels of her palms into her eyes. "Sara, Gods, I'm so sorry-"

Sara guided the taller woman to sit on one of the chairs below the closed window on the north side of the bedroom.

"Kelly, it's all right," she said firmly.

The tears came in a rush now. "N-no it's not," she cried out. "What I did, Sara, Gods…"

_-…She runs, Sara on her heels. "To the forest," Sara says breathlessly. "We can lose them there-" The sharp crack of a gunshot cuts her words off and Kelly whirls, hearing Sara collapse to the ground. The smaller woman struggles to rise and looks up at Kelly with terrified eyes. "Help," she whispers._

_Kelly sees the men approaching, eyes glinting and cheering "We got one of the bitches!" one of them cries, and tears begin to film Sara's eyes. And Kelly almost doubles back to grab the woman. _

_Almost._

_But the man at the head of the pack sees Kelly and lets out a shout. "The monster!" He yells. "The Snake! Someone tell Zuri I've got the Snake." Kelly's mind blanks with fear, and in her future she sees nothing more than days of being stuffed into a cage two times too small for her, of public beatings and humiliation beyond reasoning, and the endless, mindless degradation of everything she was until she was sold. And beyond that she cannot think of the horrors awaiting her._

_The shame is endless, but the men are almost upon her, and all she has to do is make it to the ocean, where the sparrows say the sharks wait for her. She turns and she runs for her life._

_Sara's screams and the men's laughter will haunt her until the day she dies…-_

"It took me a long time to keep from getting angry," Sara said and Kelly shuddered. "For the longest time I thought 'why should I have to go back, if that stupid snake was allowed to be free?'"

Kelly jerked away as though she had been burned, but Sara kept her eyes on Kelly's.

"I was so very, very angry at you. But you – in that short time you were there – had it much worse than I did. Even if none of the men…raped you…at the very least they never humiliated me like they did to you. At least, at the end of everything, I knew I was human. They could never take that from me."

_-…"Look at it squirm!" One of the man calls as Kelly jerks out of the way before the gunshot crashes into her leg. She is as naked as the day she was born and whenever she gets too close to the men encircling her, they pinch her bottom or whatever skin is closest. _

_She sees the bulges in their pants as she dodges the gunshots, hearing that damned accordion in the background, and tears track down her face._

_"Hey, maybe we should breed it!" One man calls, and nausea rolls in her belly at the smiles that cross the ghoulish faces surrounding her. But they aren't supposed to find a stinking Snake – an animal – attractive._

_"We don't wanna touch a fucking animal, Dai!" another voice calls back._

_"Hey, but didn't the Captain say she wanted more Snakes, though?" Another man yells excitedly. "How else are we going to get more, then? Imagine making our bitch of a Captain actually pleased with us."_

_Terror springs to her heart for a few seconds, and it's only the appearance of the Captain's first mate, who grabs Kelly by the arm and drags her back to the cage that prevents the men from acting on their horrifying idea._

_Later, when she can think about the incident without panicking, she will be grateful. After all, it was that event that gives her the strength to escape…-_

"I got off lightly," Sara said calmly as Kelly shook with silent sobs. "I know that now. I don't need my eyes to see, not really. And if I'd gone with you, I would not have managed to escape a month later after discovering my powers. If I had not escaped a month later, I probably would not have wound up here and found Dalton." And something shone in her face, something light and utterly content.

Kelly felt – along with guilt and shame – the burning edge of envy in her gut. She had never been that happy. Never.

"I forgave you a long time ago, my friend," Sara said smiling sadly, and Kelly lost the battle to tears once again.

_-…She leans against Sara's side and feels warm and safe. It's like being with her mother again, as the older woman tells her stories about her native North Blue and does everything to make her smile. And for maybe the first time since she landed in this world, Kelly doesn't feel homesick…-_

* * *

Vivi finished tying Nami securely to Luffy's back. "We'll wait for you here," she told Luffy, Sanji, and Kelly, who would be going up the mountain to the castle. "We'd only slow you down if we came along."

Usopp nodded.

"Hold on tight, Nami," Luffy told the ailing navigator.

Dalton sighed. "If you are serious, I won't try and stop you. But please, take the opposite slope. This one is home to a species of ravenous rabbit called the Lapin. If you met a pack of them you would surely die."

"That's why Blondie and I are here," Kelly said, eyes hidden behind her enormous sunglasses. "I mean, he's a pathetic excuse for a man, but he should be able to take on a couple'a wittle rabbits. Or is that too much for you, Blondie?" she said, sneering at Sanji.

He puffed up like an enraged peacock. "HOW DARE YOU." And Kelly instantly felt a hundred times better.

"Let's go, Sanji, Kel!" Luffy cried out cheerfully. "Before Nami croaks!"

"Don't make such a stupid joke, shithead!" Sanji snarled and chased after his captain. Kelly trotted after them, chortling, and subtly rubbing her reddened eyes under the sunglasses.

Fuck, but she hated crying.

* * *

Sara's powers sometimes scared even her.

She could make a mountain tremble in her rage. She could speak with any animal who walked on the ground and called it home. Flora was a weapon when it touched her hand, even the tamest flower a vicious guard dog.

But even her own powers trembled in wake of that girl's.

She'd sensed it, even when the girl had come into the slave pens half dead. Even as locked away as it had been then, she'd sensed it, straining beneath the girl's skin.

Her blind gaze strayed out the window, where she knew the mountain loomed ominously in the distance.

She hadn't been lying to the other Magus. She wasn't angry anymore – and it had taken so very long for that to come about. She was happy now.

But Sara had been comforted by a vaguely horrifying thought for a long time. Her trials and suffering were over. She had the chance to be truly and completely happy now, and she'd grabbed it with both hands.

Kelly Lewis had a far longer and harder road ahead of her before she could find anything approaching happiness, a road full of blood, heartache, and terror.

Perhaps it was karma, Sara thought placidly, remembering the vision she'd had after the slavers had dragged her back into the cage. But Sara had escaped the cages, in time.

Kelly had paid for the mistake of being born – and would _continue_ to pay – until the day she died.

Sara smiled, pitying the girl who now trudged towards the top of the mountain.

After all, she'd felt the raw envy the girl had experienced when she'd seen Sara and Dalton together, hadn't she? Only the most hateful of hearts would have still despised her after that, and Sara had never been too fond of that most awful of sicknesses. Hate was a clever virus that could wear a woman away until she knew nothing but that rage, and Sara had never liked it.

But Domoyoji Saraiyu was not a nice person, no matter how much her outward appearance lent to that assumption.

And the thought of the Magus who left her to die suffering gave Sara a great bit of pleasure.

But no one besides herself and her Familiar ever needed to know.

* * *

"You're a friggin' PAIN in the _ASS!_" Sanji bellowed, kicking the baby Lapin into the horizon.

Kelly _tsked_. "Now you've done it," she said with a sigh as the three of them continued to run.

"What're you talking about?" Sanji asked brusquely, turning to chide Luffy about carrying Nami more gently.

Kelly snorted as they emerged over a minor hill and she caught sight of what waited for them. In the snow ahead several enormous, white-furred creatures stood. They looked as though someone had plunked a rabbit's head onto a humanoid bear's body, then had pumped the resultant creature full of horse steroids.

_Jesus Christ._

"What the hell are these things?" Sanji gasped.

"They're big and white…Must be polar bears!" Luffy said.

_Jesus _H. _Christ_, this guy was a fucking moron-

Kelly's eyebrows shot into her hairline as the Lapin jumped into the air and soared towards them like a meteor. The three of them leapt away just before it came crashing down, leaving in its wake a hole over ten feet in diameter. Kelly tried to send out a greeting, but its mind was closed to her completely. _Fuck_.

Sanji and Luffy were arguing about gorillas and polar bears – _what the hell was wrong with those two idiots_ – then Nami let out a faint moan.

"Soon…t-to…Arabasta," she whispered.

Luffy sighed. "It's okay Nami, go back to sleep. Don't worry about anything else right now."

Kelly saw Sanji smiling fondly – _and why the hell did that piss her off so much?_ – and turned to face the Lapins.

"We need to reach that doctor," he said.

"Let's do this!" Luffy said.

"No, Luffy, you can't," Kelly told the boy, walking up beside Sanji and cracking her knuckles.

"Ehh, why?"

"Idiot!" Sanji chastised him. "The scoundrel's right. If you land a punch or take a hit, all the shock will go into Nami-san's body."

The Lapin launched themselves forward.

"Then what do I do now?!" Luffy yelled, sliding under a deadly swipe of razor-sharp claws.

"For now, just run and dodge and run! But don't retreat," Sanji told him.

"THAT'S TOO CONFUSING!"

Kelly danced out of the way of a strike that would have severed her spine had it landed and pivoted on a heel. Her muscles bulging, she wrapped an arm around the Lapin's arm and with a roar, tossed it into the six Lapin who had been sneaking up on the two pirates.

Luffy and Sanji stared at her until she felt the tell-tale burning in her cheeks.

"What?"

Luffy grinned at her and kept running, Sanji close behind, still shooting her strange looks as she ran to catch up.

"Impressed, Blondie?" she asked, shooting him a lascivious smirk.

Sanji twitched. "Flanc Shoot!" he bellowed in reply, and kicked a Lapin into a crowd of its fellows, knocking them over like bowling pins. He landed and shot her a smirk that made something flutter in her stomach.

"Touché," she said with a delighted grin.

* * *

"Yosh! I guess we lost 'em," Luffy said.

"No, we didn't," Kelly sighed, and pointed into the distance where the horde awaited.

"Damn it, they cut us off!" Sanji swore.

Then the Lapin began jumping up and down in unison.

"What're they doing?" Luffy asked, and the three of them watched the Lapin jump in a mix of amusement, curiosity, and annoyance. Then, after several minutes had passed, Kelly remembered and her face went as white as the snow.

She turned her head and met Sanji's eyes, which bulged in a face as pale as her own.

"_Fuck_," they said together.

"What's happening?" Luffy asked as the ground began to rumble.

"Run!" Kelly bellowed. "Fucking run! We gotta get to higher ground, right fucking **_now_**!"

A wave of snow began to rush down the mountainside at speeds that made Kelly's heart leap into her throat. Everything in its path – trees, boulders, whatever – were consumed by the oncoming wall of snow and ice. And the sound was indescribable, like an F5 tornado.

"AVALANCHE!" Sanji bellowed.

The three of them ran for their lives.

"What are we going to do, Sanji?!" Luffy shrieked.

"How the fuck would I know?" Sanji yelled back. "In any case, Nami-san comes first! Second, Nami-san, Third, Nami-san! Fourth, Nami-san! You protect her with your life, Luffy, you got that?"

Kelly looked wildly around the snowy landscape for somewhere to go, but there was nothing, and fucking hell, she didn't want to die trapped in a tomb of snow and ice, she'd done so much-she saw a cliff protruding from the mountain to her right.

"TO THE CLIFF!" she yelled over the roar of the approaching avalanche. "THE CLIFF, THE CLIFF, THE CLIFF!" She ran past the two men, feeling avalanche's approach thunder in her bones. The three of them jumped onto the cliff, and she heard Sanji breathe a sigh of relief.

"We made it in time-" Sanji swore as the wave of snow reared up high over them.

"It's not high enough! JUMP!" She bellowed at the two of them. Then there was the sensation of receiving a full-body high five from a giant, and all three of them went flying.

"FFFFFFFUUUUCKK!" Kelly screamed, toppling head-over-arse through the air. As the world revolved, she caught sight of one of the toppled trees racing down the mountain, born steadily along by the ferocity of the snow that had snapped it from its roots. She struggled to right her body for several minutes before she remembered.

_Christ, you have **magic**, you sodding idiot!_

She drew in a long breath and _twisted_, the air around her body, flinging herself towards the tree and landing lightly on its side. Exhaling in relief, and using her magic to guide her makeshift snowboard past any obstacles (including those thrice-damned Lapin), she looked wildly around for Luffy, Sanji, and Nami.

She cackled when she saw them – safe and whole – but then she caught sight of the boulder laying in their path.

"LOOK OUT!" She yelled. "EYES FRONT! LOOK IN FRONT OF YOU!"

Sanji's eyes snapped to hers and then back to the space in front of them. There was panic on his face for a few blinding moments…then another, darker emotion as he looked at Nami and Luffy.

Horror clawed its way into her throat as she recognized it. She promptly abandoned her own tree and began leapfrogging to the pirates.

It was resignation at one's own death she saw on the man's face.

How could she ever laughed at that? Even in the confines of a television show…But Gin had been right, he'd _always_ been right, this wasn't a TV show any longer and Sanji was fully prepared to die for his captain and his navigator. _No, no, Gods damn it, Blondie, you fucking moron don't do this, Sanji-_

The cook grabbed Luffy and with a mighty heave, sent both him and Nami high into the air. Kelly was still too far away to do anything, but she heard Sanji say with that damned debonair smile on his lips, the gentlemen's gentleman even now, "You have to treat a lady with care." Then the tree crashed into the boulder, splintering it and sending Sanji into the air with a pained yell and a sickening crack that stopped Kelly's heart for a few agonized seconds.

_Fuck_-and she launched herself forward as Sanji toppled towards the unforgiving rush of snow beneath him, magic and panic speeding her steps across the moving ground. She swore again as Sanji disappeared under the snow, and promptly dove in after him.

It was cold and white everywhere around her, with an immense pressure crushing in on all sides. She thought she might have screamed, but if she had, the noise was instantly lost in the roar of the snow.

_Where is he?! _She screamed in her mind and with her Magic. _God damn it, show me!_

Her magic flowed out into the snow, searching, seeking, until it looped around a lump of life-energy somewhere to her left. _There you fucking are._ The magic latched onto fluttering remains of Sanji's life-source with surprising ferocity and began pulling him towards her. She met it halfway, scooping the unconscious – but not dead – man into her arms. Kicking off from a rock below her, using her magic to propel her up, up, _up_-

She broke the surface with a shuddering gasp, and with a mighty effort, wrenched herself free of the snow. With a shout of "_Geppo!_" she leapt into the air to the sound of Luffy cheering his brains out.

As she landed on the cliff beside him and Nami with a gasp, she looked down at the unconscious man in her arms.

_Fucking idiot, more trouble than you're worth, _she thought fondly.

* * *

The Lapin did not have a name. It was too young for such things, and did not much need one. It did not much need anything, not when it had its Mama with it.

But its Mama was gone. The white rushing stuff had taken her away, until the little Lapin could only see her paw sticking out from the snow, still and stiff and cold. It used its claws, trying to dig through the snow, to get her out, but it hurt his paws and it was so cold.

It cried, digging as fast as it could. _Mama_, it sobbed in the language of the Lapin. _Mama, it's cold and I'm scared, Mama, Mama-_

It heard a crunching and whirled around to see the creatures its Mama and family had been chasing before the white rushing consumed the world. Two of the creatures – the red one and dark one – carried the orange one and yellow one each.

It was so scared because these creatures had survived the snow, but it put itself in front of its Mama, crying as ferociously as it could, _Go away, go away!_ But still the creatures approached, until they stood almost over him. The red one reached out a hand and the little Lapin cowered in fear, but then there was another sound, and snow fell on its head.

It looked up and saw the red one pulling its Mama out of the snow, alive and well, and it cried with joy, leaping into its Mama's arms.

The creatures moved away, and the little Lapin heard a voice speaking in its head, and it knew the voice came from the dark creature.

_Good luck, and watch out for a steel-jawed man with an enormous body._ The voice was everything warm in the world, like being held by Mama, and good things to eat and warm sun, and the little Lapin liked the voice.

Its Mama watched the creatures leave, and nodded.

_Thank you, Magus_, it grumbled back.

* * *

The Lapin had intervened to save them when they'd been attacked by Wapol. Kelly hoped the creatures survived the encounter.

They were adorable, after all, and Kelly had a soft spot for adorable animals that could probably snap her neck in two seconds. And only a monster could have been unmoved by the little Lapin crying for his mother.

She shifted Sanji on her back, keeping up the steady, almost miniscule trickle of magic flowing into his body. Until they got to Kureha, it would be the only thing keeping his injuries from overwhelming him. She could practically taste the scent of blood that dripped from his wounds.

It made something inside her tremble with rage.

She looked up at the mountain and swallowed. "Ready to do this Luffy?"

"Yosh," the pirate said in reply. She tightened the ties that kept Sanji's arms wrapped around her neck, and began her ascent.

* * *

Sara breathed in and the snow shifted as vines whipped out, bearing a still and cold form. Her heart nearly stopped as her husband's body came into view. One of the men – Bjorn – placed a hand on his chest and turned to her.

"His-his heart's stopped, Sara," he breathed out, and the people around them gasped.

No, she thought and placed her hands on his chest. She had lost so much, she would not lose him. Magic flared for one searing moment.

"You wake up, Dalton," she ordered, ignoring the trembling in her voice. "I will not let my son grow up without his father, do you understand me? He needs you, our people need you, Gods…" Her voice broke. "You stupid man, please…_I_ need you." She listened in the silence, hope draining away by the second.

Then…a fluttering under her hand, a shifting of a heart. Tears burned in her eyes and she looked to the sky, whispering her thanks to the Gods.

"He's alive!" Bjorn yelled, and the crowd cheered.

Sara turned to the others. "Quickly, we must get him inside," she said, before staggering, both hands going to her belly. Two men caught her, keeping her from hitting the snow.

"Come on, Sara," one of them said. "Let's get you inside."

"I do believe I over did it," she said with an almost wild laugh, her eyes never leaving Dalton's body.

Usopp watched them carry the pregnant woman and her husband inside, before turning to one of the local men and tapping his shoulder.

"How'd she do that?" he asked.

The man looked at him and blinked. "Ah, you mean Lady Sara? Don't you know? She's a great sorceress who came to this island before Wapol was chased off. She's a big part of the reason we all survived that horrid day. She and Dalton-san were married about a year after that."

Usopp turned to Vivi. "Vivi-chan, have you ever heard of something so ridiculous? Magic doesn't exist."

Vivi shook her head. "You're wrong about that, Usopp-san. I've heard stories about people like her, women and men of every race who could do things not even Devil Fruit users could. Amazing things, like stopping the tides, creating life when there was none, flying with the winds, even altering another person's very thoughts."

Something about that niggled at the back of Usopp's mind. "Is that so," he said, half to himself.

"Usopp-san? Is something wrong?" Vivi asked and Usopp shook himself.

"No, it's nothing Vivi. Let's go see how Dalton-san is doing."

* * *

-…_Her mouth is soft and warm and curves up at the side. Kelly blinks repeatedly and cannot think of anything eloquent to say in return. She's struck stupid with desire and arousal. She's never felt like this before._

_Lien smiles, wide and bright and mischievous, and leans in to steal another kiss, her fingers curling in Kelly's boyishly cropped hair. _

_"You're beautiful as a girl," Lien says. "You'd be handsome as a man, too."_

_Kelly can't help the joy that spurts in her heart, and she leans in to steal a kiss herself, tasting Lien's smile on her tongue._

_She tastes happiness too, cliché as that sounds. Happiness is better than chocolate, she thinks dreamily, and deepens the kiss…-_

* * *

"Hehe," the old woman said as she bandaged the dark-haired, younger woman's bloody hands. "Quite impressive. I haven't seen another strong as you in years." She pressed a hand to the girl's forehead and shook her head, before whispering a few words.

The air burned, and the Magus's face relaxed into a deep sleep. The doctor stepped back and smirked, snapping her fingers at the fireplace behind her.

"Get some rest, _anistaka_," Ageha Kureha said with a smile more caring than most ever dreamed her capable of and left the room, a fire now burning merrily in the fireplace.


End file.
